I am trying to deploy Windows OS using Bare Metal Deployments of BigFix. Whenever a VM is created on the OSD server, it is listed on the BigFix console with it’s IP address, I manually added the host entries of the bigfix server and OSD server to the hosts file of the VM, and then it was listed with it’s host name.
If I triy to copy few files using software distribution wizard on the computer which is listed as IP, it fails and same task works on the computer if it is listed as host name. So need to modify hosts files once the OS is deployed using bigfix task/fixlet. I have tried to copy a bat file which has the code to modify the file using Software Distribution wizard, however that does not work on the VMs that I have provisioned.I have also tried modifying task sequences and MDT bundles but that too does not work.
Could you please let me know how can I achieve this? I want the computers on which the OS was deployed using BigFix’s Bare metal and imaging domain to be listed as their host names and not the IP addresses.
Be aware of Proxy Agents. These will appear in the console as Clients, but retrieve a different set of properties through the use of a Management Extender.
In the Console, right-click the column headers and add a column for “Agent Type”. That should be return either “Native” (for a real OS running the BES Client), or one of the Proxy types (such as “Proxy - Bare Metal Extender” or “Proxy - VMWare Extender”).
A single endpoint might be displayed as many as three times - once for its Native client, again for its VMWare Proxy agent, and a third for its Bare Metal Proxy. A SWD task would not be valid for a Bare Metal or VMWare Proxy. The Proxies are a means for BigFix to send commands using a third-party API, such as VMWare’s VCenter API or OSD rbagent commands.
The “OS Deployment and Bare Metal Imaging” Site has tasks for configuring Target Properties for the bare metal clients, including renaming them. When an unknown client checks in to the OSD Bare Metal Server for the first time, it will be identified by its IP address if the target is not already “registered”. There is a task to Register Bare Metal Targets in the OS Deployment site, where you identify a client based on its MAC, IP, UUID, or Serial Number and register its hostname to the Bare Metal server. Once a target is registered, there is also a task where you can assign properties like static IP addresses to it.
This issue was resolved by modifying host name of the OSD server. We had different host name of the OSDserver and clients were referring to another OSDserver for registering.
When you use proxy agent with bare metal extender, the computers that have PXE-booted against a bare metal servers are reported in the BigFix console as “Bare metal computers”. These are usually identified by MAC address or IP. They only represent the PXE-booted computer as reported by the proxy agent, and they are not real BES clients. So, they can be target of OS deployment fixlets (like 301), but not of general fixlets that are intended for the BESClient (like Patch or SWD ones).
Once the OS has been laid down and BESClient installed, a new entry in the console appears for the computer, usually identified by the hostname, That is the good entry for targeting fixlets. The Bare Metal Computer entry will be marked inactive (greyed out) after a timeout, and can be removed using computer removal tool.
If you install Proxy Agent + Management Extender for Bare Metal Targets on your Bare Metal server then all targets that perform a PXE boot to that Bare Metal server will be listed among the Subscribed Computers with Agent Type = “Proxy - Bare Metal Extender”. Such targets will have the MAC/IP address for the Computer Name until a deployment is performed by OSD.
To install the Proxy Agent: fixlet in the BES Support site (ID depends on the platform level you are using)
To install the Management Extender for Bare Metal Targets: task 150 in the OS Deployment and Bare Metal Imaging site
I have proxy agent and management extender ant targets are successfully listed on the Console. But i need to initiate OS Deployment using MAC address of the computer. Is this possible?
Task 104: Register computer in Bare Metal Server. See the “Description” tab to fill in the MAC addresses and hostnames. Use this to register new (proxy) bare metal targets that have not checked in to a Bare Metal server before. Take the Action targeting the Bare Metal Server where you want the proxy to be registered.
Task 350: Change Bare Metal Target settings. See the Description tab to change the hostname or partition mapping for an existing (proxy) bare metal target. Take the action targeting the bare metal proxy agent.
Task 354: Change Bare Metal Target Network Configuration Settings. See the Description tab to fill in the network properties (IP address, mask, gateway, etc.) for a (proxy) bare metal agent. Take the action targeting the bare metal proxy agent.
Once the proxy agent is configured, you can take task 301 “Deploy Profile on Bare Metal Targets”. In the Description tab you choose the Image and Profile. Take the action targeting the bare metal proxy agent that you want to reload. Once the action is received at the Bare Metal Server, you can reboot the client and hit F12 to boot the network, and it should download & install the OS image. Or, if this is a reload of an existing machine that’s already in BigFix (as a native computer), you could send task 132 “Force network boot” to the native client, with a post-action reboot. When it reboots it does PXE boot instead of hard drive boot, and then will start the OS download from the bare metal server.
In my spare time I’m working on a couple of dashboards for this, but it’ll be quite a while before I’m ready to show some progress. I’d like to see a Dashboard to compare existing (native) clients to the bare metal proxy agents, allow bulk-creating bare metal targets based on existing native clients, and update bare metal network configurations to match the native clients.
This sounds like it would be immensely helpful, especially the bulk creation of targets. Were you ever able to do this? I’m looking for a way to bulk change IP addresses and hostnames for bare metal targets but right now all I can do is one at a time with the provided fixlets.
I did progress on that, but left the dashboard behind at my old workplace. I should be able to reproduce it, but I’m afraid it may take a bit of time for it to bubble up on my to-do list.
As I recall the trick was to check the tasks I referenced above, to see the (undocumented) client commands that are run on bare metal targets when you create them or change their properties (such as IP address assignments).
