Back in the day (I’m starting to feel old now) I setup a Ghost server with PXE booting. It was a pretty nice setup; a Dell PE2550 with 4x144GB SCSI (~385GB usable), 24port gigabit switch, and enough desk space – and power – to handle 16 laptops or 22 desktops at a time. It took 2 of us about 3 weeks to get the workspace setup, and another 3 weeks to get the Ghost server and PXE working. And then there was always the issue of updating the drivers on the PXE image without breaking anything else. Basically crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

That was five years ago.

Looking back on my previous experiences I can definitely say I’ve grown and become more knowledgeable. Back then, when I had researched a solution, I just googled for “imaging software server” or something similar. Working for a computer reseller meant that I had access to NFR copies of quite a bit of software, so management decided that we should go with Ghost. I hadn’t even begun to research into FOG yet.

Fast forward the five (almost 6 now) years, and I know to look into server software that supports all operating systems, supports multicast, and is fairly intuitive to setup. Enter FOG.

I like to install the latest and greatest, but in this case I had some issues that I didn’t feel like resolving when I tried to use FOG with 12.04LTS. Instead I opted to use 10.04LTS. It’s an internal server, so the patching levels are not generally as critical. I also installed this on a production network – there are 7 VLANS, active directory and windows DNS/DHCP, cisco switches. IP helper has already been set on the switches for DHCP. The active directory environment is 2008R2.

Install Ubuntu 10.04LTS x32 – I gave it a single 2.4GHz Xeon core, 512MB RAM, and 120GB partition. Installed with LAMP (no mysql password), SSH, and Mail.
Change the Root Password
sudo passwd root
Login As Root
su
Update the system
apt-get update && dist-upgrade
Reboot
reboot

Install FOG – version 0.32 at the time of this writing
mkdir -p /opt/fog-setup
cd /opt/fog-setup
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/files/FOG/fog_0.32/fog_0.32.tar.gz
tar -xvzf fog*
cd fog*
cd bin
./installfog.sh
The wizard now starts. http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Integrating_FOG_into_an_Existing_Network
I chose the following:
“N” normal installation
10.10.10.10 IP Address of FOG
“Y” to setup a router/DHCP address
10.0.10.1 IP address of DHCP server
“Y” to DNS
10.0.10.1 IP address of DNS
“N” eth0 is fine by me
“N” I already have DHCP
“N” I’m not international
“Y” looks good; set it up
Make sure you read! If you have a password setup on mysql you must adjust the configuration files accordingly (opt/fog/service/etc/config.php)
I ended up rebooting the server just in case.

Edit the Windows DHCP Options
I have 7 different DHCP scopes (one for each of the VLANs I had), so your settings may be different. Instead of making the options change per scope, I performed the task in the Server Options area.
Right-click and select “Configure Options”
Select 066 and set the value to your FOG server IP address
Select 067 and set the value to pxelinux.0

At this point you should be able to connect to your PXE FOG server – set a test workstation/laptop to boot PXE (Dell’s have F12 for this), and connect via your network interface.

SYSPREP coming soon
CONFIGURATION OF FOG coming soon