OS Installing
CSCI N321 – System and Network Administration
Copyright © 2000, 2011 by Scott Orr
and the Trustees of Indiana University
Section Overview
Hardware Inventory & Compatibility
Disk Space & Partitioning
Installation Media & Methods
OS Installation
Customization
References
RedHat Fedora 15 Installation Guide
RedHat Fedora Support – Documentation
Evard’s System Life Cycle
New
Rebuild
Build
Clean
Update
Initialize
Entropy
Configure
Unknown
Debug
Retire
Off
Getting started
Pick OS, vendor, & version
Installation media
Read vendor documentation
HW Drivers?
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Directly Supported?
Downloadable?
Hardware Inventory
CPU/Motherboard/Memory
Hard Drive(s) & Partitions
Keyboard/Mouse
CD/DVD
Graphics Card/Monitor
Sound
Networking
Gathering the Hardware Info
PC vendor documentation
Peripheral documentation
WinXP, or Win7 if installed
Record all information in Wiki
Hardware Info – Windows 7
System Properties
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General Tab
Device manager
Disk Usage - Disk Manager
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Partitions
Free Space
Network Settings – TCP/IP Properties
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Address/Subnet Mask
Gateway
DNS Configuration
Dr. Hardware Sysinfo Tool
www.dr-hardware.com
Fedora 15 Requirements
Text Mode
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CPU: 200MHz Pentium-class+
Memory: 256 MB
Graphics (X Windows) Mode
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CPU: 400MHz Pentium Pro
Memory
 Minimum: 640MB
 Recommended: 1152MB+
Disk Repartitioning
Destructive – fdisk
Non-destructive
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Split a larger partition into 2 or more
smaller ones
Must defragment the partition first
ntfsresize
Commercial tools
ALWAYS back data up first!!!
Fedora Installation Sources
Live CD
DVD
Minimal
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CD Boot
USB Boot
Rescue Boot
Network
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NFS Image
FTP
HTTP
PXE
Installation from Media
Language Selection
Keyboard/Mouse
Partitioning
Boot Loader Configuraion
Network Configuration
Root Account Creation
Image copied from CD
Disk Partitioning
Create partitions on available drives
Lists existing partitions/filesystem types
Partition information
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Mount point
Linux device
Requested/actual space
Filesystem type
Need native and swap partitions
Minimum Partition Sizes
Directory
Min. Size
/
250MB
/boot
250MB
/usr
250MB
/tmp
50MB
/var*
384MB
/home
100MB
* Will need more in order to patch the system the first time
Linux Drive Names
Floppy Disk - /dev/fd0
CDROM Drive - /dev/cdrom
Hard Drives - /dev/hdXY
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X – drive number (a-d)
Y – Partition number (1-9)
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Example: /dev/hda5 (drive a, partition 5)
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SCSI/USB Devices - /dev/sdXY
Swap Partitions
Extends the amount of RAM installed
Classic UNIX Rule of Thumb
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Swap partition should be twice the size of
RAM installed
Can get by with much less under Linux
Fedora Swap Requirements
RAM
Min. Swap Size
>= 4GB
2 GB
4GB – 16GB
4 GB
16GB – 64GB
8 GB
64GB – 256GB
16 GB
256GB – 512GB
32 GB
GRUB Boot loader
GRand Unified Bootloader
Installed on the primary hard drive
Provides a menu to boot installed
Operating Systems
Can modify for special boot modes
Password protection
Root Account
Superuser (Administrator in Windows)
System Administration account
Unlimited access to everything
Should use only when needed
Principle of Least Privilege
Post Media Installation
License agreement
Firewall – Enable only what you need
SELinux – More on this later
Date/Time
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Manual
Time Server
User account Creation
Installation Testing
Boot Messages
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Display Devices found
List services started
Watch for any error messages
Login Prompt
System Patches
Fix bugs discovered after version
release
Notification
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Vendor email lists
Security Announcements (i.e. CERT)
Automated systems
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Fedora & RedHat: yum
Microsoft: Windows Update
Shutting Down
Do not just turn off!!!
Control-Alt-Delete
Command Line
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shutdown –h [-P]
halt
reboot
Dual-Boot Installations
Installation of more than 1 OS on system
OS chosen at boot time (e.g.: Grub)
Space Allocation Planning
Virtualization
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VMWare
Virtual PC
Xen/UML
Application level (wine)
VMWare Server/Workstation
Source: VMWare, Inc.
VMWare ESX
Source: VMWare, Inc.
Large Deployments
Automated OS Installation
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Minimizes Mistakes & Non-uniformity
Examples: RedHat KickStart, Windows AIK
Partially Automated
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Each station requires minor tweaking
Cloning
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Images based on Golden Machine
Example: Ghost
Checklists!!!
Templates
Large Scale Patching/Updating
Fully Automated?
Gradual Rollout
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One
Some
Many
Document process