@george1421
I apologize for ‘hijacking’ this thread, although I believe my request is very similar to @fry_p
Almost as a template would work, which I would expect would almost work similarly in fogserver backend as persistent groups would. I do understand how the persistent groups work, however, as I noticed along with others had mentioned when I’d tried it on that thread, the basic issue we ran into was that the settings weren’t deployed per se to the machines. We’d still have to go deploy those to the machines.
What I was thinking about over the course of the last few months after persistent groups didn’t work for me specifically, was something along the line of a template.
Three methodologies I’d thought of:
- Quick Register - an option to use a template, similarly setup to how a group would be setup. In QuickReg, you can do quite a few options, but for me the ability to add one more - a template would be awesome. Say for example, if I were to choose template (4) then snapins (x,y,z) / AD OU / prodkey / even numbering scheme would be beneficial. these snapins would be assigned at image, so with zero touch, the settings would auto-deploy.
- full Registration - Similarly, during the B&W console where you type in your preferred settings for a machine, yet another line (do you want to associate a template with host (y/N/?) - where the template for the remainder of the modifications - group, product key, AD, snapins - would then auto populate.
these snapins would be assigned at image, so with zero touch, the settings would auto-deploy.
- template setup very identical to groups. But host agnostic where it isn’t assigned to any one host - quite opposite of groups where templates are literally only used for the initial setup of a machine, not long term management
I’m grateful for the features and uses we have as it is. I just know that as I setup new machines at different sites (my use case is as an MSP working in schools - 27 currently deployed fogservers, most with minimal hosts, but makes initial large deployments a breeze - but for my use case, I could bring a crummy laptop in with fog installed, and re-image a cart full of laptops very quickly. join to domain, install snapins, yadda yadda. the labor intensive part to me is still the ‘adding’ them to fog. my choices are to install the client pre-image, which then associates with fog so i can add as a group - OR the more likely scenario for me, boot, f12, pxe, fullreg, hostname, no group (at this point is almost useless to join to group), assign snapins 1-12, deploy, reboot, f12, pxe, move to next machine.
while i’m already multitudes faster than my cohorts on the Apple side of things (no MDM because of funding oddities with our clients) where they have to carbon copy clone 4 machines at a time with external hard drives - i can reimage a lab in 15 minutes…the only issue because the initial adding, which for summer projects and the like make this tedious.
also/or the ability to add snapins to quickreg. so certain snapins are assigned in quick reg, so that those snapins are auto-deployed when imaging takes place as well. that would work for me too.
