Plugins: Capone

Capone

FOG Version

Applies to version 0.29 or higher.

Overview

Capone is a plugin for FOG that allows you to image a computer based on DMI/Hardware information without having to register it with the FOG server. This module was originally written for a HP computer warranty service center in the UK. They wanted to be able to restore a computer's image just by plugging it into the network and PXE booting the machine, without any user intervention. This module is great for repair shops and places where you don't need FOG to manage the computer after it is imaged. This is our attempt at pushing FOG into the service/repair sector.

Enabling Capone

1. You should now have a new icon in the menu bar for plugins near the right hand side that looks like a puzzle piece, click on it (you already enabled Plugins, right?)
2. Click on Activate Plugin
3. Select Capone
4. Active Capone

You are now set to use the Capone plugin.

Using Capone

We need to determine what DMI field we want to use for Capone. Currently Capone only supports a single DMI field globally. To do this boot up a client computer and from the PXE boot menu select the option Client System Information. When prompted with a menu, select option 7 to show DMI information. Press the enter key to scroll through the fields and pick a field that can uniquely identify the computer type you are working with. Common fields are:

• bios-version
• system-product-name
• system-serial-number

Once you have determined the field you would like to use, perform the following:

1. In the plugins section, select Installed Plugin, then select Capone
2. In the Settings section set your selected DMI field. This settings is global.
3. Now we can create associations for return values from that DMI field and an Image. In Add Image to DMI Associations select an image you would like to link to a DMI field response.
4. Select the operating system for the image
5. Then enter the matching value for the DMI field in the text field. This string can be treated as a 'starts with' query. So if you use the field system-serial-number and you have a group of computers that all start with 112233 then you can enter that into the text field and it would match a client with the system-serial-number of 1122334455.

We now have our first association added to Capone. Now what we need to do is to add the Capone menu item to the PXE boot menu.

1. Scroll to the bottom of the capone plugin page and copy all the text in the PXE Configuration area.
2. Now go to Other Information
3. Select PXE Boot Menu
4. Click Advanced Configuration Options
5. Paste the text that you copied from the previous page.

Please note that this will not password protect this entry item. If you would like to password protect this item you will need to use the md5pass utility that is in the /opt/fog/utils directory.

It is possible to have multiple matching entries per DMI result. So for example you could have to associations for response 112233. In this case, at the console on the client computer you will be prompted for which image you would like to use.

Capone does not use additional storage nodes other then the master within a storage group.