Fog deployment nodes

Note: While this article and it's contents have technical and historical significance, it is obsolete and does not fully apply to FOG 1.2.0 and later. Inexperienced users that are new to Linux and FOG should not use the instructions here. The FOG 1.2.0 and 1.3.0 installer now offers a storage node installation mode.

For more up-to-date information - please see this: Managing_FOG

Overview
This article will cover how to extend the functionality of FOG to host multiple FOG "nodes" that are controlled by a central FOG "master". Much of the credit for this can be found on the page Including multiple PXE / TFTP servers. What I've done is refined this process a bit, and also will cover some additional techniques for managing the nodes.

Currently I operate 4 "nodes" and a single master. Each node is dedicated to it's own building and/or department to allow them to perform their own imaging without the need to manage a full FOG install. Where this differs slightly from the previously mentioned article is that these nodes can both capture and deploy images to their own subnets or use images from the master server.

This setup has been tested and implemented using FOG-0.30 on CentOS 5.6 both i386 and x86_64 systems.

FOG Master Role
The master has the following primary functions
 * Web front end to manage FOG
 * Controls all tasks for FOG nodes
 * Provides the necessary PXE boot files and menus
 * Capture and deploy images using DHCP, TFTP, and PXE

FOG Node Role
The nodes have the following functions
 * Capture and deploy images using DHCP, TFTP, and PXE

= Installing a FOG node = The process for installing a node is identical to the normal install except for a few minor changes to the install scripts.

In the fog_0.30 folder where the install files were extracted, you need to modify the bin/installfog.sh to add configureDHCP; and configureTFTPandPXE; under the "# Storage Node installation" section.

Here is what the resulting list should look like. configureUsers; configureMinHttpd; configureStorage; configureNFS; configureDHCP; configureFTP; configureTFTPandPXE; configureUDPCast; installInitScript; installFOGServices; configureFOGService; sendInstallationNotice; writeUpdateFile;

You also need to add the appropriate packages to be installed at lib/redhat/config.sh. On the line storageNodePackages add tftp-server dhcp. Adjust this for your distribution.

Here's the full line on my install storageNodePackages="httpd php php-cli mysql php-mysql nfs-utils vsftpd xinetd tar gzip make m4 gcc gcc-c++ lftp tftp-server dhcp";

= Further Details =

This is a work in progress...more to come.