@Junkhacker Yeah, this totally worked! That’s really all I need; I doubt I’ll see another of these machines for some time.
Thanks so much you guys! Consider this thread solved. I really appreciate how quickly people here responded; I’ll try to help others in turn (at least, as much as I can!).

Thanks everyone for the replies - I will follow some of your suggestions as soon as I am able - unfortunately I woke sick this AM so it won’t be until tomorrow!

I really appreciate the help - what a great project!

@sebastian-roth I worked around the issue using an iPXE boot ISO.

@sebastian-roth I worked around the issue using an iPXE boot ISO.

@george1421

If I understand you correctly, this would be exactly what I’m looking for. Would the end result simply require a custom grub.cfg that calls the image process?

@george1421

Ooooh, I see. The primary use here is to setup deploy tasks (typically updated Windows images). Would I need to add the USB NIC’s MAC each time?

Running Version 1.3.0-RC-29
SVN Revision: 6031

First, I built a BIOS bootable client:
After ensuring the BIOS is in Legacy mode, I try booting the USB stick. It gets to iPXE initializing devices… and then quickly flashes some text, only to return to the boot devices screen.

Second, I built a UEFI bootable client:
Switching to UEFI mode in the BIOS, the USB is completely ignored.

I built the FOS client but I get an error after the menu: fatal error unknown request type null

Finally I created a debug USB, I can boot to the debug console but am unsure where to go from there.

@george1421
The BIOS must also support it, yes?

@x23piracy

I’m going to order one of these adapters, thanks! Am I to understand that OEMs require specific USB chipsets (in this case, Lenovo) in order to PXE boot over USB?

Hello. I run a small computer repair shop that sees dozens of different machines from various OEMs each day. Many are a few years old or more. I setup FOG earlier this year, and it is absolutely amazing - however, I have not been able to consistently use FOG on machines without a built-in ethernet jack; namely Ultrabook PCs. Some do not support it at all, others seem to require that the iPXE builds I’m creating use specific USB-to-NIC adapters.

For instance, today I was working on a 1st-generation Lenovo X1 Carbon; there is no way to get this thing to PXE boot on a USB NIC! Thus I have to install Windows the old fashioned way (and wait 20 hours for the updates to finish).

Anyways, what I’d like to do (as a workaround) is figure out the proper way to boot systems like this into a compatible environment - for instance, in the CloneZilla days I could just boot Parted Magic and load CZ from there. Is there a similar approach in FOG? Is this the right direction to go?

Thank you for your time.

PS The FOG server is running on Ubuntu 16.04 64bit.

@Sebastian-Roth

Apologies, I’ll explain:

On ~10 different machines (XPS 15, Precision 5510, X1 Carbon 3rd gen, Thinkpad T500, Thinkpad X220, HP Elitebook, etc) I have the same result: it’s as if nothing is plugged into the ethernet port. I get a “Waiting for link-up on net0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Down” no matter what. I’ve tried using an iPXE bootable ISO as well as simply connecting to the FOG server via BIOS/UEFI PXE. I can successfully boot to the FOG menu (and image) using actual ethernet, but never using this adapter (or the other two I’ve tried). Further, I’ve made 100% certain that the BIOS/UEFI is configured for ethernet PXE booting (the X1 Carbon for instance has a menu entry for this exact purpose). I always switch to Legacy/CSM with secureboot disabled.

I’d found John Willis blog previously - that’s what led me here, actually :).

@Wayne-Workman

Tom Elliot’s seem to work, see https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/2118/looking-for-usb-nic-that-is-known-to-work-with-pxe-fog/5
And that’s what I’m using (via FOG). I’ve tried booting from various iPXE builds as well but with no luck.

I’ve set the kernel arguments system-wide, as well after host registration - I still can’t get anything to boot using USB NIC! Not sure what I’m missing.