Deploying your Image a group of clients

Groups

(Implimented in Fog v0.29)

• Groups can be used to mass change fog settings, image, edit snapins, service settings, active directory, and more.
• Group will override host settings at save only.
• Host settings can then be changed separately even though it is connected to a group. It matters on which is saved last.

Creating a Group

• 1. Group Management
  2. Create Group and fill in Name and Description
  3. Go to Membership
  4. You will need to tick "Check here to see host not in this group".
  5. Check mark the Hosts you wish to add to this group and then click "Update Hosts" at the bottom.
• Now all those Hosts are now part of that group.

Start the Task

• From the host side follow all instructions from the single client Deploying_your_Image_a_single_client
• In the Web GUI section you can change the the images and start tasks from the Groups.

1. Navigate to the Group Management area by clicking on Group Management from the top of the screen (the icon looks like a computer monitor) and then List All Groups from the left hand menu.
2. Find the entry for the Group you are working with and click on its name to view the Group object
3. Click on Basic Tasks from the left hand menu
4. Select Download/Multicast/Torrent-cast
5. Select Create Download Task for Group
6. Boot the Host PCs.

Unicast vs. Multicast vs. Torrent-Cast_images

Unicast

• Accessible from Host Management --> Select Host --> Basic Tasks
• Accessible from Group Management --> Select Group --> Basic Tasks
• Accessible from Fog iPXE Menu
• This occurs when scheduling a "Download" task, "Quick Image", or during "Full Registration" the user selects image after registration. The server (or storage node) will directly send packets (the image) to that Host's MAC address.(aka. TCP) This is excellent for directing network traffic. This can be performed under Groups running multiple unicasts to multiple hosts. However, all the hosts will not finish at exactly the same time.
• Since unicast does not rely or communicate with others in a group it is unaffected by "hung up" host

Multicast

• Accessible from Group Management --> Select Group --> Basic Tasks
• Accessible Image Management --> Multicast Image
• This occurs when scheduling a "Multi-Cast" task from Groups. The server (or storage node) will wait for all Host computers to be network booted. Once all hosts have registered for the task the packets will be sent out out to the entire network.(aka. UDP) Packets are sent and received exactly the same. Image may not complete exactly the same time
• Down side to this is if one host gets hung up then the entire process is stopped till that host catches up
• Multicasting

Torrent-Cast

• Currently not working.
• Accessible from Host Management --> Select Host --> Basic Tasks --> Advanced
• Accessible from Group Management --> Select Group --> Basic Tasks --> Advanced
• The image is broken down into chunks and indexed to create a torrent file.
• The server (or storage node) beings creates the torrent and starts seeding. The hosts request the torrent and start downloading chunks for the torrent. Once a chunk is received then the hosts will seed that chunk to other hosts. Once torrent is done downloading it will start imaging. Then the partition is rewritten to accomidate the size needed to download the files originally.
• If one host gets "hung up" the other host are not affected, but marginal time and speed are lost.