Overview

This article explains how to move FOG Settings & images from an old box to a new box. This is more safe and sure than attempting an OS upgrade, which is risky and might leave you with a broken server. It's more safe and more sure because we know exactly what to move over and how to do it. An OS upgrade is risky because if you upgrade and it doesn't work or leaves fog in an unusable state, we have no idea what broke or how to fix it without days of exhaustive troubleshooting that may or may not lead to a solution. Migrating from an old box to a new box also leaves your old box intact, which is another safety net in this method.

Building the new server

The first step in this process is building a new FOG server using the latest version of your chosen Linux distribution. I would recommend CentOS or Debian. Go through the normal steps of setting up the OS. Do not create a user called fog - it will cause you nothing but pain later on. If you're installing Debian or Ubuntu, name the user "tech" or "Administrator" or whatever your first name is, like "Bob". If you're using CentOS or Fedora or RHEL, no extra user is necessary, just set a good root password. Name the server fog-server if possible, and set a static IP or create a DHCP reservation for the server. After an IP is set, use your DNS server and create an 'A' record for the server's name and IP, Google search DNS A record if you're unsure how to do that. To install FOG, follow an appropriate installation manual or the Upgrade to trunk article.

Migrating images & database

The entire point of migrating is usually saving your host registrations, group configurations, image assignments, and your images. There is a great number of ways to do these this, but for inexperienced or beginner Linux users I would recommend leveraging NFS on the new FOG Server.

Using NFS

Because the new FOG Server provides an NFS share, this is the easiest approach. This method is also uniform across the different distributions. This approach also works whether the old FOG Server's web interface is functional or not.

Mounting

Via Terminal or SSH on the old FOG server, mount the new fog server's /images/dev directory to a local directory on the old server called /new. Where x.x.x.x is the new fog server's IP address.

mkdir /new 
mount x.x.x.x:/images/dev /new

Export DB

We will export the database and move the export to the new server. This is performed on the old FOG Server. There are a few different examples of how to do this below, depending on if you're using a password or not, and how MySQL is configured. One of them will work for you.

#No password.
mysqldump -B fog > /new/fogdb.sql

#Password with root user.
mysqldump -B fog -u root -p > /new/fogdb.sql

#No password, localhost.
mysqldump -B fog -h localhost > /new/fogdb.sql

#No password, local loopback.
mysqldump -B fog -h 127.0.0.1 > /new/fogdb.sql

#Password with localhost.
mysqldump -B fog -h localhost -u root -p > /new/fogdb.sql

#Password with local loopback.
mysqldump -B fog -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -p > /new/fogdb.sql

Export Images

Now to move over the images. Again, this is performed on the old FOG server. The more images you have, the longer the below command will take to execute.

copy -r /images/* /new

Importing DB

Via Terminal or SSH on the new FOG server, we now need to import the database. Assuming you followed the above steps for exporting exactly, one of the below methods will work for you.

#No password.
mysql -D fog < /images/dev/fogdb.sql

#Password with root user.
mysql -D fog -u root -p < /images/dev/fogdb.sql

#No password, localhost.
mysql -D fog -h localhost < /images/dev/fogdb.sql

#No password, local loopback.
mysql -D fog -h 127.0.0.1 < /images/dev/fogdb.sql

#Password with localhost.
mysql -D fog -h localhost -u root -p < /images/dev/fogdb.sql

#Password with local loopback.
mysql -D fog -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -p < /images/dev/fogdb.sql

After the database is successfully imported, you should delete the old file or move it. This is done on the new server. Here's the command to delete it:

rm -f /images/dev/fogdb.sql

It's important to note that this step will make the new server's web interface credentials the same as whatever the old server's was. If you don't know what the password is, you can follow steps here to reset the default web interface password: Password_Central#Web_Interface

Arranging Images

This step is performed on the new FOG server. In this step we're simply moving the images to where they are supposed to be and setting the correct permissions. This step assumes that your new server's images directory is in the default location and you followed the above steps for moving them over exactly.

rm -f /images/dev/.mntcheck
mv /images/dev/* /images
touch /images/dev/.mntcheck
chown -R fog:root /images
chmod -R 777 /images

If old server was FOG 1.3.0+

Because of the security model of FOG 1.3.0+ and the new FOG Client, without the proper CA and ssl certificates present on the new fog server, any currently deployed hosts with the new FOG Client installed will ignore the new server and not accept commands from it. This is by design.

In order to maintain control of existing hosts that have existing new FOG Clients installed or existing images that have the new FOG Client built into them, you must copy this directory from the old server to the new server: /opt/fog/snapins/ssl

Using NFS

If you followed the NFS instructions in Step 2 and have not shutdown or rebooted your old fog server since then, you can use the mount that should still be there. The below steps are performed on the old FOG server.

cp -R /opt/fog/snapins/ssl /new

On the new FOG Server, delete the existing ssl directory and then move the old ssl directory to the proper location, and then set permissions.

rm -rf /opt/fog/snapins/ssl
mv /images/dev/ssl /opt/fog/snapins

#Fedora, CentOS, and RHEL users should use this command to set permissions:
chown -R fog:apache /opt/fog/snapins/ssl

#Debian, Ubuntu, and Ubuntu variant users should use this command to set permissions:
chown -R fog:www-data /opt/fog/snapins/ssl

To complete the ssl migration, on the new FOG Server, re-run the fog installer that you used in Step 1.

Fix IP Addresses, Passwords, and interface on new server

If FOG isn't doing DHCP

If you have an existing dedicated DHCP server, you'll need to update it. Completing this step will make the new FOG Server "live". You can make the old FOG Server "live" again by rolling back this step.

Windows Server

Linux / ISC-DHCP

Open Terminal on your DHCP Server, or SSH to the server.

If you're not already root, become root with sudo -i

Use your favorite editor to edit this file: /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

I like to use Vi. Using Vi as your editor:

vi /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

Look for these two lines throughout the document:

next-server

filename

Change the value of next-server to the new FOG Server's IP Address. If you have just a simple DHCP configuration and filename only appears one time in the configuration, you will likely want this to be set to undionly.kpxe or undionly.kkpxe

After making changes and saving them, restart the DHCP service. On new Linux distributions this can typically be accomplished with:

systemctl restart dhcpd

If you have issues with restarting DHCP, get the full status of it with:

systemctl status dhcpd -l

Migrate FOG

Contents

Overview

Building the new server

Migrating images & database

Using NFS

Mounting

Export DB

Export Images

Importing DB

Arranging Images

If old server was FOG 1.3.0+

Using NFS

Fix IP Addresses, Passwords, and interface on new server

If FOG isn't doing DHCP

Windows Server

Linux / ISC-DHCP

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