FOG Project

FOG 1.3.0 Officially Released

Tom Elliott -

The FOG Team is proud to announce the immediate availability of FOG 1.3.0.

This release is available for download at:
Download from GitHub

Download from Sourceforge

While it has been a long time coming, much has changed and we feel you will enjoy the many improvements.

There have been so many changes that it's nearly impossible to express all of the items in a single news posting (or even trying to separate the postings to give all of the changes.)

While we're sure you all want to know every single detail, we believe you might just want to know the strongest points initially.

For installation instructions please see https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Installation#Installation_manuals and select your relevant server OS.

For any issues you may encounter, please report the issue on the forums https://forums.fogproject.org/.

Thanks

Community

We wish to give many thanks to all the supporters and followers. With our many changes over the last two years in regards to hosting FOGProject.org and the length of time between official releases, it's been rewarding to see everybody through our own changes.

Developers

A large thanks to the developers and moderators for their input and assistance on everything. All of the developers of FOG are now listed on the Wiki rather than trying to keep track as our team has grown. We thank you all for your input and fixes.

Contributors

Thank you all for your submissions. These have been very helpful in the overall improvement.

Changes

Imaging
  • Windows 10 is supported.
  • Disks no longer restricted to FOG's assumptions when capturing images.
  • Disks are more naturally detected allowing nearly any FOS recognized disk to work for imaging as well (instead of relying on /dev/sd* or /dev/hd*)
  • Networking within FOS properly recognizes DNS automatically. Detection of interfaces is very dynamic as well thank to Charles Spence and Sebastian Roth.
  • Capturing uses a new format while maintaining older compatibility.
  • Handling of Linux images has been improved thanks to Curtis Larsen.
  • Speed of deployments is greatly improved thanks to Greg Grammon.
GUI

Among the many different changes, the most immediately noticeable will be the GUI. We've changed the older style 0.32 thru 1.2.0 GUI to a slightly compacted system and icon change outs.

FOG Client

Our newest Senior Developer, Joe Schmitt, has rewritten the FOG Client which includes many new features and improvements. For a brief overview and how to get started using it, check out the wiki article. Some of the major changes include:

  • Cross platform compatibility, supporting Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
  • New security measures have been designed and implemented for safer, and less, network traffic.
  • A PowerManagement module, replacing GreenFOG. This module allows you to request immediate shutdowns or restarts of any machine on your network. You can also setup CRON-style shutdown or restart jobs for any computer or group.
  • Snapin Packs. Snapin Packs let you deploy multiple files with a snapin
  • Shutdown prompt. Whenever the client needs to shutdown or restart a computer for maintenance, it will first prompt the user logged in, letting them postpone the restart or perform it immediately.
  • Rebranding support. The shutdown prompt can be customized with your organization's logo, color scheme, and name all from the web portal.
New Plugins

Plugins have existed in FOG for a while, but there's only ever been 2 main plugins ever made known. First was the Capone plugin, and the next was the Location Plugin. While they did exist, many did not know they existed. With 1.3.0, FOG includes many more plugins and improves upon the original structure. The current and fully functional plugins are:

  • Capone
    This one has existed for a long time and is used for imaging devices without requiring a device to be registered. This plugin still exists, but ultimately is no longer required as the improved iPXE menu system now allows you to image your devices without requiring registration.
  • LDAP
    This plugin allows you to enable sign in to FOG using your LDAP environment. This includes Active Directory and OpenLDAP.
  • Location
    This allows you to specify where hosts are imaged while maintaining a centralized management system.
  • PersistentGroups
    This is a plugin that just installs a trigger into SQL. This trigger enables hosts added to a group to obtain the groups base setup automatically. Use host template that the hostname is the same as the group name to work properly.
  • Pushbullet
    Receive notifications on devices with Pushbullet installed when events occur such as imaging completion.
  • Slack
    Receive notifications within your slack channels and/or users when events occur such as imaging completion.
  • Task State Edit
    This allows you to add, or change Task states.
  • Task Type Edit
    This allows you to add, or change Task types.
  • WOL Broadcast
    This allows you to define different broadcast addresses that WOL should be sent through.