[fog] FOG PXE Boot Problem

[MrC921]

Hello all,

 

I am new to the FOG imaging platform and want to learn how to use it. I have set up my FOG Server on an Ubuntu computer. Using VirtualBox I have created two other Ubuntu virtual machines (on the same computer) which are supposed to use PXE to boot to the FOG server.

 

This worked perfectly a few days ago. The VMs PXE-booted just fine, allowing me to register them with the FOG Server. But I have since rebooted the FOG Server, and this does not work anymore. The VMs try to PXE-boot, but this fails and then they boot from their virtual hard disks. This issue happened earlier. To fix that I uninstalled and reinstalled FOG, thinking it was not related to rebooting.

 

Why would simply restarting the computer cause this problem? How can I get PXE to work again and how can I prevent a reboot from crashing FOG?

 

Thanks a ton,

MrC921

[CyberNerd]

is the fog service actually starting?

 

update-rc.d(8)

[morganw]

The FOG specific services are for task scheduling, image replication and multicast deployment. You won't actually need those to be running to get a machine to display the PXE menu, only the TFTP related stuff needs to be running. I think the problem is more likely to be with how you are running your DHCP server and how your network is configured in Virtual Box. If you look at the logs on your DHCP server, can you see that DHCP requests are being received?

 

The FOG installation scripts aren't particularly robust (e.g. if you are using the newest version of Ubuntu then TFTP services won't work because one of the paths is set differently in newer packages) so I would recommend running the FOG server as a VM (so you can snapshot it during setup and upgrades), then having a physical storage node to actually serve the images from. Also, you don't need the full desktop system on the FOG server as all of the configuration is either terminal based or using the web interface.

[MrC921]

Thanks, guys. Well, I can access the FOG configuration just fine (by entering its IP address into a browser). My concern is that with this problem, I will not be able to register any additional hosts because they will not boot to PXE.

 

When I installed the FOG server, I chose to make the server act as a DHCP Server. In VirtualBox, I configured the FOG clients to have bridged network connections, and that allowed PXE boot to work. I made absolutely no changes to the VirtualBox settings before PXE stopped working; the only thing that happened was rebooting the computer.

 

I've just run a "ps -A" command in the Terminal. These FOG processes are running: "FOGImageReplica[tor?]", "FOGMulticastMan[ager?]," and "FOGTaskSchedule[r?]." So it appears that FOG is indeed running. PXE boot is just not working.

 

Edit: Sorry, I neglected to mention that I configured no TFTP server. I just find it strange that FOG worked perfectly until I just restarted the computer.

Edited March 19, 2012 by MrC921

[morganw]

Does you VM time out requesting a DHCP address or do you get a TFTP error?