Host Management

Hosts

Video Overview of Hosts

• A host in FOG is typically a computer, but it can be any network device.
• Hosts are used to identify a computer on the network and are used to manage the device.

Adding a new host

storage-node > Adding a Storage Node

Method 1: Adding a new host via Full registration

This is the preferred method, and maybe the easiest method for getting a host into the FOG database, but it requires you to visit the host.

:   -   When at the client computer, during the boot up process when
        you see the PXE/iPXE boot menu select **Perform Full Host
        Registration and Inventory**.
    -   During this phase you will be prompted for information about
        the host like hostname, operation system, image, groups,
        Product Key, and other information.
    -   If you enter a valid operating system and image id, you will
        be asked to Image Now.
    -   If desired, you can set the task and it will deploy the
        image on the next network boot.

• After the requested information is entered, FOG will pull a quick hardware inventory the client.

• This method of registration will register the mac address(primary wired only), serial number(if available in BIOS), Make/Model, and other Hardware information with the FOG server.

• For more information on these commands please see: using-fog-boot-menu > Client Side Tasks

Method 2: Adding a new host via Quick Registration

• Quick registration is very much like the Full host registration, with the exception that it will not prompt you for any input, nor give you the option to image the computer directly from the registration screen. When the host is added to the FOG server, it will be named with the hosts primary mac address. This method is great for adding a lab of 30 computers to FOG quickly and easily.
• This feature is disabled by default, to enable this feature:

1. Go to FOG Configuration

2. Select FOG Settings

3. Find section FOG Quick Registration

4. Tick ON FOG_QUICKREG_AUTOPOP to ✔

5. Set FOG_QUICKREG_IMG_ID to the image ID you would like to use for all newly created hosts.

6. FOG_QUICKREG_OS_ID will be auto populated when “Save Changes” is selected. (OS is now associated within the image so no need to select an OS)

Change **FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NAME** to what you would like to name you new machines, where `*` will be replaced by a number.

:   -   If you would like to zero pad numbers you can use
        **LAB300-**\*\* which would result with **LAB300-03** or
        **LAB300-09**.

8.

Set **FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER** to the first number you would like to use.

:   -   After each registration the computer will automatically
        image and the **FOG_QUICKREG_SYS_NUMBER** will incremented
        by 1.

Method 3: Manually Adding

Add Host Video Tutorial

• Adding a new host can be done in the hosts section of FOG.
• Then by clicking on the “Add New Host” button on the left hand menu.
• At least a hostname and a MAC address must be entered in order to add the host to the FOG database.

---

Required{ .red } Fields

A host consists of the following Required{ .red } Fields:

Hostname

A string used for the Windows Hostname of client, this must be less than 15 characters long.

MAC address

This field is used in for for a unique identifier for the host. The string must be separated by : (colon), in the format of 00:11:22:33:44:55.

NOTE

The MAC Address has a description field. This can currently only be set via the api and can be whatever you want it to be. For example you could use the FOGApi powershell module to set the mac descriptions to the make/model of the adapter like so

$fogHost = Get-FogHost
$fogHostMacs = Get-FogHostMacs -hostid $foghost.id;
$fogHostMacs | ForEach-Object {
    $fogmac = $_;
    $netAdapter = Get-NetAdapter -IncludeHidden | Where-Object macaddress -eq $fogmac.mac.replace(":","-");
    if ($Null -ne $netAdapter) {
        $fogMac.description = "$($netAdapter.name) - $($netAdapter.InterfaceDescription)"
        Update-FogObject -type object -coreObject macaddressassociation -jsonData ($fogMac | convertto-json) -IDofObject $fogmac.id -vb
    }
}

This does a POST to {fogurl}/fog/macaddressassociation/{macID}/edit with a json formatted like the following for each mac address on a windows machine that already exists in FOG.

{
  "id": 6355,
  "hostID": 1847,
  "mac": "f4:a4:75:ab:93:d4",
  "description": "Wi-Fi - Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz",
  "pending": "0",
  "primary": "0",
  "clientIgnore": "0",
  "imageIgnore": "0"
}

---

Optional Fields

Hosts can also include, but are not required:

Description

Information for your own reference.

Image Association

This field is a drop down box that will allow you select an image object created in the Images section.

Operating System

Drop down box that allow you to select the primary type of operating system running on this host.

Kernel

This is only used if you want to overwrite the default kernel used for FOG. Needs to be specified as fog/kernel/mybzImage

Kernel Arguments

This allows you to add additional kernel arguments for booting the host (ie: vga=6, or irqpoll).

Primary Disk

This option allows you to force a device to use during imaging if fog fails to detect the correct device node.

---

!!! note

This page also allows for configuration of Active Directory integration,
but this topic will be covered later.

When all settings are added, click on the “Add” button.

Method 4: Importing Host Information

• When getting started with FOG, you need to enter the host information for the devices on your network. We understand this can be a long difficult process, so in order to make this process easier we created a page that allows you to import most of the host information from a CSV file.

Note

The CSV format changed significantly in FOG 1.6 (headered or positional columns, an associations column for groups/snapins/printers, and name-resolved foreign keys). See CSV Import / Export for the full, current column layout and format rules — the safest workflow is Export → edit → Import, so you always start from a file FOG already considers valid.

Importing the File

1. After the file is prepared and saved, you will need to log into the FOG Management Portal.
2. Then click on the Hosts icon .
3. On the left-hand menu, click on Import Hosts.
4. Browse for your file, then click “Upload CSV”.

Create CSV From Network Scan

Per a community user in the forums. You can also use powershell to scan the network and create a csv. See Creating a csv host import from a network scan

# examples, just gotta put subnets minus the final .x in a string array
# Could also be params if this was a function
$subnets = @("192.168.1", "192.168.2", "10.2.114", "192.168.0");
$subnets | ForEach-Object { # loop through each subnet
    for ($i=0; $i -lt 255; $i++) { # loop through 0 to 255 of the subnet
        $hn = nslookup "$_.$i"; # run nslookup on the current ip in the loop
        if ($hn[3] -ne $null -AND $hn[3] -ne "") { # does the ip have a dns entry
            $hostN = $hn[3].Replace("Name:","").Trim(); # parse the nslookup output into a fqdn host name
            $mac = getMac /S $hostN; # does the hostname have a mac addr. Can also add /U and /P for user and password if not running from a administrative account
            if ($mac -ne $null) { # was there a mac for the host?
                $macAddr = $mac[3].Split(' ')[0]; # use the first found mac address and parse it
                "$hostN,$macAddr" | Out-File C:\hosts.csv -Append -Encoding UTF8; # add the hostname,macaddress to the csv
            }
        }
    }
}

Managing Hosts

General

• Once hosts have been added to the FOG database you can modify or delete them. Finding a host which you wish to edit can be done in two ways, the first is by listing all the hosts that exist. This is done by clicking on the “List All Hosts” button. The second way to locate a host is to use the search function. To search for hosts click on the “New Search” button, if you would like to search for all hosts you can enter a ”*” or ”%”. The search function will search in the host’s name, description, IP and MAC address.
• Once a host is located, it can be edited by clicking on the edit button or on the Host Name itself. Clicking on the edit button will display all the properties that were shown during host creation with the addition of snapin, printers, active directory, service settings, hardware, virus history, and login information.
• The entire host object can be removed from the FOG system by clicking on the delete option at the bottom of the Host Menu.

Multiple MAC Address Support

• When FOG first registers your HOST computer it uses the first connected Ethernet cable and defaults it to the Primary MAC Address. Once the FOG Client is installed and reporting data back to the FOG server it may register other additional MAC addresses, such as wireless and other wired connections. Also, an additional MAC can also be added directly under the Host definition.

These new MAC Addresses will need to be approved before FOG will take advantage of them.

:   1.  **Host Management** → **\[Selected Host\]**

→ Additional MAC 2. Fog Configuration → MAC Address List → Approve Pending Addresses

• Fog Configuration → MAC Address List At this location you can also “Update Current Listings” giving updated information on the MAC Addresses and their manufactures, listing it under the Host.

Host Status

The Ping Status column on the host list shows whether the FOGPingHosts service could reach the machine the last time it ran.

It is not an ICMP ping

The check opens a TCP connection to a single port — port 445 by default — and reports whether it succeeded. A host that answers ping at the command line but does not listen on that port is reported unreachable, and that is working as designed. Linux hosts, Windows hosts with file and printer sharing off, and anything behind a host firewall are all affected.

The port and the timeout are settings in 1.6: FOG Configuration → FOG Settings → Ping Host Settings. See The Ping Hosts Service for how to choose them.

• Hosts are looked up by name, so you need an internal DNS server tied in with your DHCP server, so that when a DHCP address is handed out the DNS server is notified of the new IP. Confirm the FOG server can resolve a host with:

  getent hosts somehostname
  

• If that fails, the check cannot succeed whatever port you pick, and the host will always show as unreachable. If the name only resolves as a FQDN:

  #Replace fogproject.org with your domain suffix
  getent hosts somehostname.fogproject.org
  

• then add your domain to the DNS Search domains: setting on your server.

• If names resolve and a host still shows unreachable, check its Last Client Check-In below. If that is current, the machine is fine and only the port test is failing — usually a host firewall, or a host that genuinely does not run a service on that port.

FOG_HOST_LOOKUP is not a performance setting

Older documentation advised unticking FOG Configuration → FOG Settings → General Settings → FOG_HOST_LOOKUP on fleets of 250+ hosts, on the grounds that the host list pinged each row as it loaded. It does not — the column renders a value the service already recorded, so the page costs the same either way. In 1.6 the setting controls whether the Ping Status column is shown at all.

When was this host last seen?

Every host records two timestamps, shown on its General tab and as columns on the host list. Both read Never until the event has happened at least once, and neither can be edited — they are facts the server records, not settings.

Field on the host	Column on the list	What it proves
Last Successful Ping	Last Ping	the machine answered, at that time — it was powered on, on the network and routable from the server
Last Client Check-In	Last Check-In	the FOG client was installed, running, and able to reach the server, at that time

“Answered” covers three ways of answering, and Last Successful Ping advances for all of them:

• it replied to a real ICMP echo request — since 1.6 that is tried first;
• something answered on the TCP port FOG falls back to;
• it refused that connection. A host that is up with nothing listening still sends a TCP reset, and only a live machine can do that. Those show as Up, port closed.

Last Successful Ping records how the host answered, so it reads 2026-08-23 01:14:52 (ICMP) or (TCP). A ping that gets no answer at all leaves the field alone, so a host that has been off for a month is still distinguishable from one that stopped answering ten minutes ago.

The pair is more useful than either half, because the interesting cases are where the two disagree:

Last Ping	Last Check-In	What it usually means
recent	recent	healthy
recent	old or Never	the machine is up but the FOG client is broken, stopped, or was never installed
old or Never	recent	the client is fine; the host is silently dropping both the echo request and the connection rather than refusing them — a host firewall. Not a fault, but the ping cannot see this machine
old	old	the machine has genuinely been off since the later of the two

The second row is the one worth acting on. Full detail, including how to pick a port for a mixed fleet: The Ping Hosts Service.

Creating Host Groups

• FOG allows you to create groups of hosts which then allows you to take action on a whole grouping of hosts.
• Hosts can be created either on the “List All Hosts” section or by doing a search for hosts.
• To create a group select the computer you would like to be member of the group by placing a check in the box next to the hostname, or by clicking the check all button in the title row. After the hosts are selected scroll to the bottom of the screen and then enter a name in the create to group box or select a group to add the hosts to. Then click on the “Process Group Changes” button.