Linux installation guide

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Linux General Policy and Installation instructions

This document contains guidelines in setting up/configuring and updating of Linux systems. If you need to operate the system differently then a clear argument must be made and the decisions taken documented. In any case an accurate account of what has been done for each machine (server) MUST be made in the \\electra\docs\System-configs folder. Clients do not need an entry in this folder but it is nice to have a group config file ex. linux-rackables.

For Linux: 

   * we have standardized on the Fedora distribution of Linux
   * our current standard release is Fedora Core 3
       ** Our new standard is Fedora Core 4 to which we are moving
          to slowly. --ank 19:16, 27 Οκτ 2005 (EEST)
   * we also operate our own update service for doing updates
   * each machine installed MUST operate with these parameters and the following 
     guideliness unless it is strictly for evaluation purposes.

Installing Linux

A.1. Filesystem structure

   * Filesystem configuration
     We always use LVM version 2 and up for setting up Fedora filesystems
   * Physical partitions and volume groups set up
         o One physical partition for /boot with 100MB ( MUST be outside of LVM set up)
         o One physical partition, large enough, to contain the LVM Volume group for
           OS install (VolGroup00).
           Suggested size is 15,000MB. This gives enough space for installing and 
           expanding later if required.
         o One LVM Volume group (VolGroup00) for OS. See above.
         o One LVM Volume group (VolGroup01 or DataVG01 etc) for DATA (if required). 
           This is prepared only if a very large volume of data is anticipated or if 
           we determine that a separete volume group is necessary or desirable. 
           Otherwise we can create a filesystem within the OS volume group. It can 
           also be constrained into a physical drive if required.
   * Filesystems
         o Within the VolGroup00 we have:
           (root) / 	1024MB (1GB)
           /usr 	4096MB (3GB) for server machines
                       5120MB (5GB) for client machines
                       (can be increased or decreased if requirements demand it)
           /var 	1024MB (1GB)
           /tmp 	512MB
           /usr/local 	512MB
           /opt 	512MB
           /home 	512MB (before mounts)
           swap space 	
             this depends on what the system will be doing. If physical memory is 
             large enough >= 1GB then swap=memory.
           /sys-data (optional, see above)
           
           Remaining of disk space.
           Data file-system (in case VolGroup00 will not be used for data storage).
         o Within VolGroup01, if it exists, create a filesystem for data and mount it 
           to a suitable directory node (prefer /sys-data). This file system can be any
           format of ext3, xfs, jfs or reiserfs. If extra speed is required prefer xfs
           or reiserfs.

Security

B. Services and Applications installed

A list of services and applications that the machine is being used for must be maintained.

B.1 Client machines

B.2 Server machines

  1. Install only services absolutely required for the server functions.
  2. Server machines (web, mail, db etc) install also X-Window system, Gnome desktop and all administration utilities. This helps in managing the system. If it is prepferred to disable the X-Window interface on the machine then do so in /etc/inittab.

C. Configuration of Linux systems

C.1 Network

   * we prefer a DHCP assigned network configuration

C.2 NTP

   * the following minimum configuration must be made in /etc/ntp.conf
    keys            /etc/ntp/keys
    server 194.42.16.20
    restrict 194.42.16.20 mask 255.255.255.0 nomodify notrap

   * delete (or comment out) any other server xx.xx.xx.xx lines

C.3 Logging and monitoring (Nagios, syslogd, snmp)

We are using the Nagios system to monitor our systems. In order to allow proper monitoring of Linux systems the following RPMs must be installed:

The NRPE (Nagios Remote Process Execution) system RPM
The Nagios Plug-ins RPM

To install these do the following after you set up the systems for correct updating as described in Section D below: 

yum install nrpe-2.0
yum install nagios-plugins-1.4

This is applicable to Fedora Core 3&4. Do not try it on earlier systems. Upgrade!

C.3.1 Configuring the NRPE environment

In order to allow the NRPE to work properly with our monitoring system do the follwoing: 

Edit the /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg file as follows:
     
     allowed_hosts=194.42.16.17
     dont_blame_nrpe=1

It must be emphasized that this is a minimal configuration and any special monitoring cases must be coordinated between the Nagios admin the the Linux machine admin.

C.4 NIS

NIS works best if the client does an autodiscover of available server when needed. If for some reason the auto-discover mode (broadcast) does not work then we prefer to have at least two servers for each client in the yp.conf file and the option to auto-discover (broadcast) if both fail if . Minimum example: 

# /etc/yp.conf - ypbind configuration file
# Valid entries are
#
# domain NISDOMAIN server HOSTNAME
#       Use server HOSTNAME for the domain NISDOMAIN.
#
#   domain NISDOMAIN broadcast
#       Use  broadcast  on  the local net for domain NISDOMAIN
#
# domain NISDOMAIN slp
#       Query local SLP server for ypserver supporting NISDOMAIN
#
# ypserver HOSTNAME
#       Use server HOSTNAME for the  local  domain.  The
#       IP-address of server must be listed in /etc/hosts.
#
# broadcast
#       If no server for the default domain is specified or
#       none of them is rechable, try a broadcast call to
#       find a server.
#
domain csnis server pac2.cs.ucy.ac.cy
domain csnis server 194.42.16.12
broadcast

C.5 Security

D. Updating Linux

The CS dept operates its own yum server for upgrading all Linux machines. Updates are currently maintained for FC2, FC3 and FC4. This list will gradually change according to the active releases we are using (see above). It is expected that we will maintain at least three releases at all times. Updates are downloaded/refreshed every Sunday at 2:00 am. Each machine should use this system and not external update sources to minimize network traffic.

In order for a Linux Fedora machine to access the YUM server it must be configured to do so. A working configuration is available on system eris (also the yum server machine). There is a problem with the gpg key import.Disabling gpgkey=0 in yum.conf fixes it but...

D.1 For Fedora Core2

in the file /etc/yum.conf replace the following lines:

name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os/

[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/

with

[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever-$basearch - Base on CS-UCY Yum server
baseurl=ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/core/$releasever/$basearch/os

[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever-$basearch - Released Updates on CS-UCY Yum server
baseurl=ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch

D.2 For Fedora Core3 and later

- make sure that the reposdir parameter is NOT defined in /etc/yum.conf.
- in the file /etc/yum.conf add the lines

[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever-$basearch - Base on CS-UCY Yum server
baseurl=ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/core/$releasever/$basearch/os

[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever-$basearch - Released Updates on CS-UCY Yum server
baseurl=ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch

[extras]
name=Fedora Core $releasever-$basearch - Extra packages on CS-UCY Yum server
baseurl=ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/extras/$releasever/$basearch

[cs-extras]
name=Fedora Core $releasever-$basearch - CS - Extra packages on CS-UCY Yum server
baseurl=ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/cs-extras/fedora/$releasever

A YUM-HOWTO is found here.

D.3 RedHat's up2date

If we like to be able to use also the up2date tool provided by RedHat and the up2date applet on our desktop then the following configuration should be made in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources: 

   * comment out the default yum configuration
   * insert the following lines:
         o yum fedora-core ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/core/3/$ARCH/os
         o yum updates-released ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/core/updates/3/$ARCH
         o yum extras ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/fedora/extras/3/$ARCH 
         o yum cs-extras ftp://yum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/pub/linux/cs-extras/fedora/3

Unfortunately up2date cannot detect the release level installed and therefore it must be configured for the correct release version of Fedora. Above we have it for Fedora Core3.

D.4 Update Policy

The following policy MUST be adhered to in upgrading all Linux machines managed by Support: Downloading of upgades are done every Sunday night.

D.4.1. Client Machines

Client machines should be updated weekly with all the updates available (kernel included). Particular attention is payed to security updates. 

* It is advisable that NOT all machines are upgraded the same day so that in case of 
  error in the updates only a small number of clients will be affected. One possible 
  way to do this is to have all machines with system number ending to 1 or 2 
  (ex CS101, CS102) make an upgrade on Monday, number 3,4 on Tuesday etc.

* It is advisable that critical software not be allowed to update automatically unless we 
  have determined (by doing a manual update) that updates actually work. Critical software
  are:
       --- kernel (see also below)
       --- applications software that MUST be available 
           (ex. C compiler in teaching labs)

D.4.2 Server Machines

D.4.3 Things to watch for

When upgrading Linux systems watch for the following:
  1. when upgrading kernels the /root partition tends to become full. 
     This is mainly because the /lib directory grows for ever since upgrading the kernel
     does not remove the old ones and /lib/modules and other directories get large.
     To remove a kernel do something like:
              yum remove kernel-2.6.11-1.14_FC3
        or    rpm -e kernel-2.6.11-1.14_FC3
     The best practice should be to leave around 2-3 generations of kernels in case we need them.

D.5 Automatic Installation using kickstart

Linux enables administrator to prepare a configuration file,named ks.cfg in order to prepare multiple clients, with minimal effort. Kickstart file, can be placed on a floppy drive, on bootable cd, or on ftp, http server.

Click here to find out how this can be done.

D.6 Bug with the anaconda installer for FC4 (at least)

There is a bug with the anaconda installer for FC4 (it may appear on other releases also) which gives partly the following error immediately before filesystems are ready to be formatted: 

   The kernel was unable to re-read the partition table on /dev/hda .......... (Device or          
   resource busy).

This error appears only on pre-partitioned systems that need to be reinstalled with a different partiiton scheme. To resolve this issue:

  1. boot from the install CD
  2. go into rescue mode (F5)
  3. when you are at the promp type
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
  1. reboot and continue as usual
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