Posts made by VincentJ

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771473.aspx

Tried this?

Setup FTP and NFS on the storage array and use it directly, rather than trying to NFS into the VM and NFS out of it again.

What storage in your ESXi are you using that is giving you 12TB of space?

Something to also test would be if you split your storage into small boxes in storage groups, can you better accommodate multiple uploads at once?

Since this is a lot of machines, you need to figure out how you are going to get them all uploaded repeatedly without too much issue. Also if you use a storage system with snapshots, you could have more recent versions available in case the latest becomes bad.

If you could put the Images on a FreeNAS based machine you could keep up performance and make sure that the images are stored safely with checksums etc. It also means that you can have multiple FreeNAS’ managed by one FOG Server VM to upload to multiple targets.

One thing to check, do you know that FOG works with the currently installed OS and BIOS settings on your machines?

Having to set a different type of task is not optimal. What causes the failure of the normal imaging process and causes a need for this?

Alternative… Redo Backup or something else that is similar. boot off the machine and select the ‘image’ you want to make.

FOG does not do what you want without modification. If you don’t know how to make the modification maybe you need an alternative solution.

If you are good at modifying things… maybe you could take out the bits in the bootable image that contact the FOG server and put them onto another OS that is USB bootable, however I fail to see the advantage if you have to move to a PC either way.

You could make a storage node that boots via WOL and then you could run the image replicator, or use some other method of replicating the images.

Just make sure you give it time to boot up and replicate before trying to pull an image off of it.

You might also be able to hack in the ability for the server to SSH into a hypervisor and start a specific VM, however this will likely not ever come to the ‘normal fog’

Write some code or fix a bug and post it

I run mine on my main network all the DHCP server has to do is add two options, which are easy to configure if you have a ‘proper’ router and not one of the little horrors some of the ISP’s send out.

Every environment is different and you can always do what suits you best.

Proposal, Collecting anonymous data to monitor FOG usage and improve FOG based on usage patterns.
By collecting information about the types of systems the FOG server is installed on and the systems that FOG helps to image we can have the data to make decisions about development.
Anonymous info to collect:

Options to collect data on the following, opt out tick box:

1. Fog Server

2. Client General

3. Fog Server information
   Fog Version
   CPU info – Model+cores (model may not be enough to detect VMs with less)
   RAM info
   Disk size
   Number of Storage nodes configured
   Number of registered hosts
   Number of images
   Largest Image
   Disk Read throughput / IOPS benchmark
   Network Interface Speed
   Compression Level Set
   Operating System
   Unicast Imaging Tasks done in last 12 months
   Multicast Imaging Tasks done in last 12 months
   Advanced Tasks done in last 12 months

4. Client General
   CPU – Model+cores
   RAM
   Disk – Model+size
   NIC
   Motherboard

Tracking…
Fog Server needs to generate a UUID for itself
Fog Server also needs to generate UUID for each client
Reporting:
Once a week the Fog Server packages the data selected and sends it to the reporting server.

What could we use information for?
• What features are people using, which ones should the developers focus on
• What machines do not work with FOG, so the developers can troubleshoot
• What storage and NICs are users giving FOG? Can we improve how we utilize faster NICs and storage.
• Is there spare CPU/RAM capacity on the FOG server or clients for more intelligence or processes?
• Many more which I’m sure will come about due to looking at statistics.

Have you set the computers BIOS to boot from the network? it won’t automatically do that.

You could use a startup script in windows to check the available space and extend the partition by an amount if you wanted to.

a very edge case… you will likely need to DIY it.

The developers can not program every single configuration, only the one that fits most use cases.

also, look at how many PCs you are imaging… do you need that much bandwidth at once?

A good thing to check… it may have 4 ports to your main switch, but does everywhere else have enough bandwidth to carry that?

maybe some more information about your org could help us advise you.

by sysprepping it afterwards your making it a ‘blank slate anyway’

I keep a Pre-Sysprep and a post sysprep to deploy.
As for different hardware, any of my images will boot in almost all of my hardware (I have some really old stuff that isn’t 64 bit)

No matter what I use the drivers are included.

Something to watch out for… Make your master image smaller than your smallest HDD by a good chunk… not all HDDs that say the same size are actually the same. You can have windows expand the drive later.

Did you install the virtualbox extension pack?

It does indeed work just the same.

If you encounter difficulties, post here again or come on IRC and get help from the #FOGImaging channel.

any of the developers can maybe confirm if there has been any changes made to the way storage nodes operate between 0.32 and 1.2… if it hasn’t and the process is exactly the same then would be even more useful.

Testing 1.2 in my environment, but will be on 0.32 for a while yet.

Well, I got a FOG Storage node working on my FreeNAS on the main system with just an NFS share and entering in credentials on the web page, didn’t have to mess with FTP at all.

One thing of note… the image replicator started pushing the images immediately at 700-800Mb/s and filled up my testing FreeNAS. Came back in the morning to lots of red warning lights and a slow day removing older data at incredibly slow speeds.

At least means once my 10GbE FreeNAS arrives it will not take much work to make it a storage node. Will work up a ‘proper’ method once that arrives including dataset settings and permissions.

FreeNAS keeps their system lean, only installing what is required.

Unlike most other NAS’ they make use of virtualization to run ‘plugins’.

The plugins create a ‘Jail’ which is a FreeBSD instance with the correct software installed.

Most other NAS will install directly on the NAS’ OS.

if we can configure the NFS and FTP etc on FreeBSD, or even all of fog, we can turn it into a plugin that will be a single one click install.