Fog is a free and open-source computer cloning solution that allows you to create an image of your computer's hard drive and deploy it to multiple computers at once. In this tutorial, we will cover the steps to install Fog on FreeBSD.
Before we proceed, you should have the following:
Before we start with the installation of Fog, we need to update and upgrade the FreeBSD system to the latest version.
To update the package repository, run the following command:
sudo pkg update
To upgrade the installed packages to the latest version, run:
sudo pkg upgrade
Fog requires some packages to be installed on the system. These packages include Apache, MySQL, PHP, and other dependencies. We can install all these packages at once using the following command:
sudo pkg install apache24 mariadb103-server php74 php74-mysqli php74-curl php74-ldap php74-zip php74-gd php74-mbstring php74-exif php74-fileinfo git
This command will install Apache as the webserver, MariaDB as the database, PHP as the scripting language, and other necessary dependencies needed for Fog.
Now, we need to configure Apache to host Fog. We will create a new Apache configuration file for Fog with the following command:
sudo nano /usr/local/etc/apache24/Includes/fog.conf
Add the following content to the file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/usr/local/www/fog/"
ServerName your-server-ip-address
LogLevel warn
ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/fog_error.log
CustomLog /var/log/httpd/fog_access.log combined
<Directory "/usr/local/www/fog/">
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Save and close the file by pressing CTRL+X, followed by Y, and then ENTER.
Next, enable Apache to start at boot time using the following command:
sudo sysrc apache24_enable=YES
Now, we can start the Apache server using the following command:
sudo service apache24 start
We need to create a new MariaDB database and user for Fog. To do that, execute the following command:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter the root password when prompted. Then, create a new database and user with the following commands:
CREATE DATABASE fog;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON fog.* TO fog@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'your_fog_password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT
Replace 'your_fog_password' with a secure password of your choice.
Now we can download and install the Fog package. Change to the /usr/local/www directory and download the latest version from the Fog GitHub repository using the following command:
sudo git clone https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject.git fog
Then, change the ownership of the /usr/local/www/fog directory to the Apache user (www) using the following command:
sudo chown -R www:www /usr/local/www/fog
We need to configure Fog settings to make it work for our environment.
Copy the config.class.php.sample file to config.class.php using the following command:
sudo cp /usr/local/www/fog/lib/fog/config.class.php.sample /usr/local/www/fog/lib/fog/config.class.php
Edit the config.class.php file using a text editor like nano:
sudo nano /usr/local/www/fog/lib/fog/config.class.php
Update the following fields:
define('DATABASE_TYPE', 'mysqli');
define('DATABASE_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DATABASE_NAME', 'fog');
define('DATABASE_USERNAME', 'fog');
define('DATABASE_PASSWORD', 'your_fog_password'); # Replace with the password you used earlier
.
.
define('ROOTPATH', '/fog/');
.
.
define('STORAGE_DATADIR', '/images/'); # The directory where the images will be stored
Save and exit the file by pressing CTRL+X, followed by Y, and then ENTER.
Finally, we need to restart Apache and MySQL for the changes to take effect. Run the following commands:
sudo service apache24 restart
sudo service mariadb restart
Now, open the web browser and navigate to http://your-server-ip-address/fog/management/. You should see the Fog login page.
Log in using the default user fog and password password. You should see the Fog management page.
That's it! You have successfully installed and configured Fog on FreeBSD. You can now start creating and deploying images to multiple computers.
If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!
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