Posts made by Steve Ropiak

I don’t see the Fog windows client anywhere on my server. Does Radio Shack sell it?

No, we don’t run the Fog service. i will be sure to include it in this year’s build so I can test. Does that come on the Fog server as a share or is it a separate download?

Hmm, we re-imaged most of the campus last summer and none that I’ve checked seem to have this file. Is it a server option that we should enable?

Log file? Windows log or does Fog keep it’s own? I did read the Wiki an AD and will test that as well. Thanks for the post.

OK, so how do I get Fog to set the host name after imaging? I see in the Service Configuration that Hostname Changer is enabled and it seems enabled in the global setting as well. Is there something else I need set to have this happen?

We normally don’t have the machines set to PXE boot first as it slows the boot process. But this has been enabled before as have the two options above and Fog has never named the computers for us.

Edit: The admin before me said they tried this but joining the computer to AD did not work so well. Is it possible for Fog to name the computer and not join it o AD?

Well, we let unattend.xml do everything except name the computer and join the domain. So, it goes like this:

Boot after image running mini setup
Human enters computer name from the label on computer
Once setup is complete, human logs in with local account that unattend.xml automatically creates and runs a Powershell script that:

Sets a password for the local administrator account
Enables the local administrator account
Joins computer to the domain
Deletes the temporary local account that unattend.xml created
Deletes the Powershell script from the local drive

Your method sounds interesting, though. So, how exactly does this flow?
Does Fog auto name the computer, then join it and you rename it or is there a pause in the process that allows you to name it? How does this interact with unattend.xml?

Thanks for the tip. I’ll run some trials in my lab.

This looks very promising. We are close to doing builds for our summer refresh. I will give this a try. Thanks!

Edit: In editing my existing Unattend.xml i don’t see a branch similar to your image. Is it part of the original file or did you need to create the entire branch?

My understanding is that if you are not enrolled in any sort of volume licensing program, that you are required (at some point) to type in the license key from the computer. Failure to do so puts you in violation of the EULA. Hence, your post imaging setup cannot be completely automated.

If I run sysprep with an unattend.xml that does everything except name the computer (it prompts for that), when exactly does this script run? Is it after the mini setup is totally done? I’d like to populate this with my little powershell script that joins the domain, sets a password and activates the real administrator account, etc. Basically what I need to know if this is the last thing to execute. Thanks to all who reply.

Working from the PXE menu is very cool. But the ultimate coolness is the ability to UDP multicast which does require the Fog server interface. I use it at the school where I have 120 desktops that all share the same image. I haven’t pushed the limits as to what this can do yet, but last summer we had 40 desktops imaging at once with little degradation of performance. That one feature makes Fog the best imaging software EVER. Can’t wait to see 0.33. Many thanks to all the Fog developers who devote a lot of their time to make my job much easier.

Correct. This allows us to set the computer name, etc. before we join.

Finalize.ps1:

reg import c:\deluser.reg
;imports a reg branch that tells it to run a batch file at next boot. The batch file deletes the temp user account created by sysprep and also deletes the finalize.ps1 file as it contains the local admin password in plain text

net user administrator xxxxxxx
;sets password for local admin account

net user administrator /active:yes
;enables the local admin account

Add-Computer -DomainName “student.emcc.edu” -credential student.emcc.edu\itadmin
;adds conputer ro student domain (prompts for credentials of domain admin account)

restart-computer
;reboots to complete

My experience is that you should be able to deploy a Fog image on a blank drive. Based on what you wrote, it makes me wonder if the machine is PXE booting. At what point do you see the above?

My understanding of the upload process is that at the very end, the image file is moved via ftp from a temp folder to its final destination. Maybe that process failed. If you look in the images folder on the fog server is the image file there and of the correct size?

Yu yo, re: “It would be awesome to include the option of tweaking sysprep.inf / unattend.xml to change the hostname and join an AD before booting the computer after deployment.” We use Powershell for that. The Unattend.xml does it all, we log into the desktop and run our Finalize.ps1 which enables and sets a password for the local administrator account, joins the computer to the domain and restarts the computer.

Heretics!!!
[SIZE=6][B][FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]Philistines!!! ;)[/COLOR][/FONT][/B][/SIZE]

[SIZE=6][B][FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=3]Seriously, a year from now a new Windows 7 machine will probably be a special order item (if there are any left)[/SIZE][/COLOR][/FONT][/B][/SIZE]

In Fog, we do match the Host name with the real PC name just to make it easy for ourselves, but I don’t think it is critical as Fog uses the MAC address to identify the computer. When the host boots, if the mac address does not match, it won’t be found and the task won’t execute.

I like SpiceWorks for monitoring and it’s help desk module, but their ads are kind of annoying. it’s good enough that I’d buy it to not have the ads. I deployed untangle to a client and they love it. If you need a good CRM, Sugar is awesome. It comes in both Community (Open source) and Enterprise (paid product) flavors.

If I understand correctly, you used the web interface to define an image and a host. The host being tied to the image. What I did next is to create an upload task in Fog and when I reboot the host, it loads the Fog kernel and sends an image to Fog.

Great to hear. Let me know if I can provide additional help.

You can get really fancy and use the Unattend.xml file, but we prefer the simple approach. There are many ways to do this, here is what works for us:

1. Load Windows, applications, patches, drivers, etc. on master
2. Run sysprep /oobe /generalize (Computer will shut off at the end). You’ll find sysprep in C:\windows\system32\sysprep fiolder.
3. Create an upload task in Fog for this computer
4. PXE boot the computer to upload the image

After you deploy this image to a host and reboot, the computer starts by running the mini setup. It ends asking for a computer name, etc. Just like it is new from HP or Dell.