isc-dhcp-server config not created / How to propperly upgrade from version 1.5.9 to 1.5.10

[MauriceNorden]

A litte bit of background information
We have a fog server running version 1.5.9 with a lot of custom scripts for booting a varaity of winpe tools and around 300+ GB of images.

We use fog to deploy images for refurbished computers.
And the demand for windows 11 is rising.

So since fog 1.5.10 has support for windows 11 we want to upgrade.

Because fog is a piece of critical infrastructure i wanted to deploy the new version in a brand new VM to see if there are any conflicts with the customizations.

After a fresh install of fog 1.5.10 i noticed that network booting was not possible.
While troubleshooting i've noticed that the isc-dhcp config was empty

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Creating a new privileged CT container in proxmox.
2. Enabeling Nesting, NFS, CIFS, FUSE
3. Downloading FOG 1.5.10
4. Install fog 1.5.10 on ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Expected behavior
A out of the box working DHCP server

Screenshots

Software (please complete the following information):

• FOG version: 1.5.10

• OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Additional context

And i have some other questions, since i've heavily customized fog:

• Editing the INIT.XZ file to ony ask the hostname question.
• Adding a custom background.
• A custom written dashboard that uses the FOG api on the same server.
• Windows PE menu items.
• Removed the need for a password for interacting with the menu.

So my question is, will this functionaliy break when updating from FOG 1.5.9 to FOG 1.5.10 or is better to create a new VM and migrate all the customalizations?

I have backups of the old FOG vm but since it's allmost 300+ GB in size i don't want to put the snapshot back since it costs a lot of time.

Thanks in advance!

[George1422]

If the config file is not created, the shortest path to getting you running is to copy the config file from your old fog server. If the upgrade removed the config file then I can point you to a starter config that you can update to match your needs.

In regards to ubuntu 18.04, that OS has reached EOL in May of 2023. That in itself doesn't mean FOG will not run on that OS, it means that the developers won't want to spend a lot of time trying to fix this issue for 18.04 when they have FOG admins pushing the other end of trying to install FOG on OS' that were released yesterday or last week where FOG hasn't been tested. Its a crazy race.

As for your other questions.

1. No need to edit the init.xz file because you can patch the fog.manreg script to skip questions or default some questions. There is an example of that in the tutorials forum on the fog web site.
2. Custom backgrounds are support in FOG, but some uefi firmware will not display the correctly.
3. Custom UI, that is possible, but you will need to hand edit the apache config file to support multiple web sites in different paths in the html docs directory.
4. You can boot winpe images, I have a tutorial for pxe booting multiple different operating systems in the tutorial forum.
5. Removing the need for passwords can be achieved by editing the FOG iPXE menus (under system config) to prepopulate the user account and password fields. This is a security risk so there is no tutorial on how to do this, but search the forums because there are examples of how to do this. The issue has come up before so it can be achieved.

[MauriceNorden]

Thanks for some clairity,

I'll look into the the fog.manreg script thanks for the tip!
I already have all the PXE winPE configs so creating them is not an issue for me.
The panel is also in place.

Only question that remains is it better to install the new fog version in a new container (possibly with a newer version of ubuntu).

Or is there also the possibility to upgrade the old version without the current implemented changes getting corrupt/dis-functional?

P.S, is this what you had in mind with regards to the custom init.xz?

[George1422]

Sorry I had to leave before I could give a complete thought on the fog.man.reg file. Here is the tutorial I'm referring to. https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/14278/creating-custom-hostname-default-for-fog-man-reg It talks about creating a custom hostname dynamically, but the concept is the same on patching the file on the fly during the post init script. So you can either unpack the init.xz file make the cange to the fog.man.reg file then repack the init.xz file or just copy over the patched file during FOS Linux startup then you can use the standard init.xz

As for in place upgrade or new. IMO if you are installing a new OS I always create a new VM new OS and latest version of FOG. Then migrate the fog data from the old server to the new server. This way you can use the old fog server until the new one is online. I've seen OS upgrades get botched so you have to roll everything back. A clean OS install is usually preferred.

[MauriceNorden]

Thank you very much for the extra info.
It looks like the new version does not create the correct the right DHCP and TFTP config files, but that can be also be my mistake while installing
I now have migrated everything after some trouble with DHCP and TFTP but i've just migrated the configs.

Seems like every functions as normal and we can finaly start rolling out windows 11 images to our devices!

[George1422]

I think you are the second person that I've seen mention that the config files are not being created correctly. What host OS did you try to install FOG on? There maybe something there with this issue.

[MauriceNorden]

Goodmorning,

I'm currently running ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS inside a proxmox hypervisor.

UPDATE

The NFS configs also seems missing