Redhat LINUX ADVANCED SERVER User Manual

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Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

2.1

The Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux

Advanced Server Installation

Guide

For the Itanium®Processor

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1: For the Itanium®Processor

Red Hat, Inc.

1801 Varsity Drive Raleigh NC 27606-2072 USA Phone: +1 919 754 3700 Phone: 888 733 4281 Fax: +1 919 754 3701 PO Box 13588

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rhl-ig-as-itanium(EN)-2.1-HTML-RHI (2002-09-19T10:24-0400) Copyright © 2002 by Red Hat, Inc. This material may be distributedonly subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, V1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Distribution of substantively modiﬁedversions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permissionof the copyright holder. Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard (paper) book form for commercial purposes is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.

The admonition graphics (note, tip, and so on) were created by Marianne Pecci<goddess@ipass.net>. They may be redistributed with written permission from Marianne Pecci and Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat, Red Hat Network, the Red Hat "ShadowMan" logo, RPM, Maximum RPM, the RPM logo, Linux Library, PowerTools,Linux Undercover, RHmember, RHmember More, Rough Cuts, Rawhide and all Red Hat-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United Statesand other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Motif and UNIX are registeredtrademarks of The Open Group. Intel and Pentium are a registered trademarksof Intel Corporation. Itanium and Celeron are trademarksof Intel Corporation. AMD, AMD Athlon, AMD Duron, and AMD K6 are trademarks of AdvancedMicro Devices, Inc. Netscape is a registeredtrademark of Netscape Communications Corporation in the United States and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. SSH and Secure Shell are trademarks of SSH CommunicationsSecurity, Inc. FireWire is a trademark of Apple Computer Corporation. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to are the property of their respectiveowners.

Table of Contents

Introduction.........................................................................................................................................v

1. Document Conventions.........................................................................................................v

2. How to Use This Manual ....................................................................................................vii

2.1. We Need Feedback! .............................................................................................vii

1. Steps to Get You Started.................................................................................................................9

1.1. Do You Have the Right Components? ...............................................................................9

1.1.1. Where to Find Other Manuals.............................................................................9

1.1.2. Registering Your Product.................................................................................. 10

1.1.3. No Boxed Set? No Problem!.............................................................................10

1.2. Is Your Hardware Compatible?........................................................................................ 10

1.3. Do You Have Enough Disk Space?..................................................................................10

1.3.1. Installation Disk Space Requirements ..............................................................11

1.4. Which Installation Class is Best For You?.......................................................................11

1.4.1. Advanced Server Installations ..........................................................................12

1.4.2. Custom Installations .........................................................................................12

2. Before You Begin the Installation Process ..................................................................................15

2.1. Installation Overview.......................................................................................................15

2.1.1. Disk Space Requirements .................................................................................15

2.2. The EFI Shell...................................................................................................................15

2.2.1. EFI Device Names ............................................................................................15

2.2.2. EFI System Partition.........................................................................................16

2.2.3. Booting the Installation Program......................................................................16

3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server ............................................................................... 19

3.1. The Graphical Installation Program User Interface ......................................................... 19

3.1.1. A Note about Virtual Consoles .........................................................................19

3.2. The Text Mode Installation Program User Interface .......................................................20

3.2.1. Using the Keyboard to Navigate.......................................................................21

3.2.2. Displaying Online Help ....................................................................................22

3.3. Selecting an Installation Method .....................................................................................22

3.4. Installing from CD-ROM.................................................................................................22

3.4.1. What If the IDE CD-ROM Was Not Found?.................................................... 23

3.5. Preparing for a Network Installation................................................................................24

3.5.1. Setting Up the Server ........................................................................................ 24

3.6. Installing via NFS ............................................................................................................24

3.7. Installing via FTP.............................................................................................................25

3.8. Installing via HTTP..........................................................................................................26

3.9. Welcome to Red Hat Linux..............................................................................................27

3.10. Language Selection........................................................................................................27

3.11. Keyboard Conﬁguration.................................................................................................28

3.12. Mouse Conﬁguration .....................................................................................................29

3.13. Install Options................................................................................................................31

3.14. Disk Partitioning Setup ..................................................................................................31

3.15. Automatic Partitioning...................................................................................................32

3.16. Partitioning Your System...............................................................................................33

3.16.1. Graphical Display of Hard Drive(s)................................................................34

3.16.2. Disk Druid’s Buttons .....................................................................................34

3.16.3. Partition Fields ................................................................................................35

3.16.4. Recommended Partitioning Scheme ...............................................................35

3.16.5. Adding Partitions ............................................................................................35

3.16.6. Editing Partitions ............................................................................................37

3.16.7. Deleting a Partition ......................................................................................... 37

3.17. Partitioning with parted ................................................................................................38

3.18. Network Conﬁguration ..................................................................................................38

3.19. Firewall Conﬁguration ................................................................................................... 40

3.20. Language Support Selection .......................................................................................... 42

3.21. Time Zone Conﬁguration...............................................................................................43

3.22. Account Conﬁguration...................................................................................................44

3.22.1. Setting the Root Password ..............................................................................45

3.22.2. Setting Up User Accounts...............................................................................46

3.23. Package Group Selection ...............................................................................................46

3.23.1. Selecting Individual Packages ........................................................................ 47

3.23.2. Unresolved Dependencies...............................................................................48

3.24. X Conﬁguration — Video Card ..................................................................................... 49

3.24.1. Video Card Conﬁguration............................................................................... 49

3.25. Preparing to Install .........................................................................................................50

3.26. Installing Packages.........................................................................................................50

3.27. X Conﬁguration — Monitor and Customization ...........................................................51

3.27.1. Conﬁguring Your Monitor ..............................................................................51

3.27.2. Custom Conﬁguration.....................................................................................52

3.28. Installation Complete ..................................................................................................... 53

3.29. Booting Your Machine and Post-Installation Setup.......................................................53

3.29.1. Specifying the Kernel .....................................................................................53

3.29.2. Post-Installation Boot Loader Options............................................................54

3.29.3. Using a Startup Script .....................................................................................54

A. Additional Resources about Itanium and Linux ....................................................................... 57

B. Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.................................59

B.1. You are Unable to Boot Red Hat Linux Advanced Server..............................................59

B.1.1. Is Your System Displaying Signal 11 Errors? ..................................................59

B.2. Trouble Beginning the Installation..................................................................................59

B.2.1. Problems with Booting into the Graphical Installation ....................................59

B.2.2. Is Your Mouse Not Detected? .......................................................................... 59

B.3. Trouble During the Installation .......................................................................................60

B.3.1. Partition Creation Problems .............................................................................60

B.3.2. Other Partitioning Problems .............................................................................60

B.3.3. Are You Seeing Python Errors? .......................................................................60

B.4. Problems After Installation ............................................................................................. 61

B.4.1. Problems with Server Installations and X ........................................................62

B.4.2. Problems When You Try to Log In ..................................................................62

B.4.3. Your Printer Will Not Work Under X...............................................................62

B.4.4. Problems with Sound Conﬁguration ................................................................62

C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions.............................................................................................63

C.1. Hard Disk Basic Concepts...............................................................................................63

C.1.1. It is Not What You Write, it is How You Write It............................................63

C.1.2. Partitions: Turning One Drive Into Many ........................................................ 65

C.1.3. Partitions within Partitions — An Overview of Extended Partitions...............68

C.1.4. Making Room For Red Hat Linux Advanced Server....................................... 69

C.1.5. Partition Naming Scheme.................................................................................73

C.1.6. Disk Partitions and Other Operating Systems..................................................74

C.1.7. Disk Partitions and Mount Points.....................................................................74

C.1.8. How Many Partitions?......................................................................................75

Index...................................................................................................................................................77

Introduction

Welcome to the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server Installation Guide. This guide contains useful information to assist you during the installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. From fundamental concepts such as installation preparation to the step-by-step installation procedure, this book will be a valuable resource as you install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

This manual will walk you through a typical installation using the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD-ROMs. Once you have completed the installation as outlined in this manual, you will have a fully functioning system.

1. Document Conventions

When you read this manual, you will see that certain words are represented in different fonts, typefaces, sizes, and weights. This highlighting is systematic; different words are represented in the same style to indicate their inclusion in a speciﬁc category. The types of words that are represented this way include the following:

command

Linux commands (and other operating system commands, when used) are represented this way. This style should indicate to you that you can type the word or phrase on the command line and press [Enter] to invoke a command. Sometimes a command contains words that would be displayed in a different style on their own (such as ﬁlenames). In these cases, they are considered to be part of the command, so the entire phrase will be displayed as a command. For example:

Use the cat testfile command to view the contents of a ﬁle, named testfile, in the current working directory.

filename

Filenames, directory names, paths, and RPM package names are represented this way. This style should indicate that a particular ﬁle or directory exists by that name on your Red Hat Linux system. Examples:

The .bashrc ﬁle in your home directory contains bash shell deﬁnitions and aliases for your own use.

The /etc/fstab ﬁle contains information about different system devices and ﬁlesystems. Install the webalizer RPM if you want to use a Web server log ﬁle analysis program.

application

This style should indicate to you that the program named is an end-user application (as opposed to system software). For example:

Use Netscape Navigator to browse the Web.

[key]

A key on the keyboard is shown in this style. For example: To use [Tab] completion, type in a character and then press the [Tab] key. Your terminal will

display the list of ﬁles in the directory that start with that letter.

[key]-[combination]

A combination of keystrokes is represented in this way. For example: The [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Backspace] key combination will exit your graphical session and return you to

the graphical login screen or the console.

vi Introduction

text found on a GUI interface

A title, word, or phrase found on a GUI interface screen or window will be shown in this style. When you see text shown in this style, it is being used to identify a particular GUI screen or an element on a GUI screen (such as text associated with a checkbox or ﬁeld). Example:

Select the Require Password checkbox if you would like your screensaver to require a password before stopping.

top level of a menu on a GUI screen or window

When you see a word in this style, it indicates that the word is the top level of a pulldown menu. If you click on the word on the GUI screen, the rest of the menu should appear. For example:

Under Settings on a GNOME terminal, you will see the following menu items: Preferences, Reset Terminal, Reset and Clear, and Color selector.

If you need to type in a sequence of commands from a GUI menu, they will be shown like the following example:

Click on Programs=>Applications=>Emacs to start the Emacs text editor.

button on a GUI screen or window

This style indicates that the text will be found on aclickable button on aGUI screen. For example: Click on the Back button to return to the webpage you last viewed.

computer output

When you see text in this style, it indicates text displayed by the computer on the command line. You will see responses to commands you typed in, error messages, and interactive prompts for your input during scripts or programs shown this way. For example:

Use the ls command to display the contents of a directory:

$ ls Desktop axhome logs paulwesterberg.gif Mail backupfiles mail reports

The output returned in response to the command (in this case, the contents of the directory) is shown in this style.

prompt

A prompt, which is a computer’s way of signifying that it is ready for you to input something, will be shown in this style. Examples:

[stephen@maturin stephen]$

leopard login:

user input

Text that the user has to type, either on the command line, or into a text box on a GUI screen, is displayed in this style. In the following example, text is displayed in this style:

To boot your system into the text based installation program, you will need to type in the text command at the boot: prompt.

Additionally, we use several different strategies to draw your attention to certain pieces of information. In order of how critical the information is to your system, these items will be marked as note, tip, important, caution, or a warning. For example:

Introduction vii

Note

Remember that Linux is case sensitive. In other words, a rose is not a ROSE is not a rOsE.

Tip

The directory /usr/share/doc contains additional documentation for packages installed on your system.

Important

If you modify the DHCP conﬁguration ﬁle, the changes will not take effect until you restart the DHCP daemon.

Caution

Do not perform routine tasks as root — use a regular user account unless you need to use the root account for system administration tasks.

Warning

If you choose not to partition manually, a server installation will remove all existing partitions on all installed hard drives. Do not choose this installation class unless you are sure you have no data you need to save.

2. How to Use This Manual

This manual focuses on a CD-ROM based installation, so it is ideal for users (both new and old) who want a quick and simple installation solution. It will help you prepare your system, walk you through the installation, and assist you in the conﬁguration of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

If you are an experienced user who wants to perform a Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD-ROM installation, and you do not need a review of the basics, you can skip ahead to Chapter 3 to begin the installation process.

Tip

Refer to the Red Hat Frequently Asked Questions for answers to questions and problems that may occur before, during, or after the installation. You will ﬁnd the FAQ online at:

http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/faqs/rhl_general_faq/

viii Introduction

2.1. We Need Feedback!

If you spot a typo in the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server Installation Guide, or if you have thought of a way to make this manual better, we would love to hear from you! Please submit a report against the component rhl-ig-as-itanium in Bugzilla at:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

When submitting a bug report, be sure to mention the manual’s identiﬁer:

rhl-ig-as-itanium(EN)-2.1-HTML-RHI (2002-09-19T10:24-0400)

If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as speciﬁc as possible when describing it. If you have found an error, please include the section number and some of the surrounding text so we can ﬁnd it easily.

If you have a support question (for example, if you need help conﬁguring X, or if you are not sure how to partition your hard drive[s]), use the online support system by registering your product at:

http://www.redhat.com/apps/activate/

Chapter 1.

Steps to Get You Started

Note

Although this manual reﬂects the most current information possible, you should read the to Red Hat Linux Advanced Server Release Notes for information that may not have been available prior to our documentation being ﬁnalized. The Release Notes can be found on the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD #1 and online at:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/ma nuals/linux

Before you install to Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, you should perform the following steps:

1.1. Do You Have the Right Components?

If you have purchased the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server boxed set, you are ready to go. However, mistakes occasionally happen, so now is a good time to double-check the contents of your product.

A black, red, and white Registration Information card is included with your product. A list of the contents of your boxed set version is on the back of the card. Please read over the list and check to make sure that you have all the CDs and manuals that are included with the version of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server that you purchased.

If you have purchased the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server boxed set from Red Hat, Inc. (or one of our distributors), and you are missing one or more of the items listed, please let us know. Contact information is also available on the Registration Information card.

How to identify our ofﬁcial boxed set: The bottom of our box has an ISBN number next to one of the bar codes. That ISBN number should be in this form:

1-58569-x-y

(The x and y will be unique numbers.) Red Hat partners with companies (international and domestic) so that we can make Red Hat Linux

Advanced Server available to you in the most convenient form. Because of these partnerships, you might ﬁnd that your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server product may not have been actually produced by Red Hat.

If your product has a different ISBN number (or none at all), you will need to contact the company that produced it. Normally, third-party producers will include their logo and/or contact information on the outside of their box; an ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server boxed set lists only our name and contact information.

1.1.1. Where to Find Other Manuals

If your particular product did not include all of the printed Red Hat Linux Advanced Server manuals, or if you would like to referece other Red Hat Linux manuals, you can ﬁnd them online or on the Red

10 Chapter 1. Steps to Get You Started

Hat Linux Advanced Server Documentation CD included with your ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server product.

To ﬁnd the manuals in both HTML and PDF formats online, go to:

http://www.redhat.com/docs

1.1.2. Registering Your Product

If you have purchased the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server boxed set, you should register your product. Registration offers many useful services, such as access to Red Hat Network and more. To register your product, go to:

http://www.redhat.com/apps/activate/

You will ﬁnd your Product ID on the Registration Information card in your Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server boxed set. Once registered, you will have access to all the extras that Red Hat provides to its registered users.

1.1.3. No Boxed Set? No Problem!

Of course, not everyone purchases a Red Hat Linux Advanced Server boxed set. It is entirely possible to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server using a CD created by another company, or even via FTP. In these cases, you may need to create one or more diskettes to get started.

For people installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server from a CD-ROM not from Red Hat, you may need a boot disk. You may also be able to start the installation directly from the CD. We will discuss this in more detail when we outline the various installation methods.

For information on making diskettes, see Section 2.2.3.2.

1.2. Is Your Hardware Compatible?

Hardware compatibility is particularly important if you have an older system or a system that youbuilt yourself. Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 should be compatible with most hardware in systems that were factory built within the last two years. However, hardware speciﬁcations change almost daily, so it is hard to guarantee that your hardware will be 100% compatible.

The most recent list of supported hardware can be found at:

http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/

1.3. Do You Have Enough Disk Space?

Nearly every modern-day operating system (OS) uses disk partitions, and Red Hat Linux Advanced Server is no exception. When you install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, you may have to work with disk partitions. If you have not worked with disk partitions before (or need a quick review of the basic concepts) read Appendix C before proceeding.

The disk space used by Red Hat Linux Advanced Server must be separate from the disk space used by other OSes you may have installed on your system. At least three partitions (/, /boot/efi, and

swap) must be dedicated to Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

Before you start the installation process, one of the following conditions must be met:

Chapter 1. Steps to Get You Started 11

• Your computer must have enough unpartitioned

disk space for the installation of Red Hat Linux

Advanced Server.

• You must have one or more partitions that may be deleted, thereby freeing up enough disk space to

install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

1.3.1. Installation Disk Space Requirements

Note

These recommendations are based on an installation that only installs one language (such as English). If you plan to install multiple languages to use on your system, you should increase the disk space requirements.

Advanced Server

An Advanced Server installation, without a desktop environment, requires at least 1.8 GB of free disk space. Choosing to install GNOME or KDE,requires at least 2.3 GBof free space. Choosing both GNOME and KDE requires at least 2.8 GB of free disk space.

Custom

A Custom installation requires 500 MB for a minimal installation and at least 4.2 GB of free space if every package is selected.

If you are not sure that you meet these conditions, or if you want to know how to create free disk space for your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation, please refer to Appendix C.

1.4. Which Installation Class is Best For You?

Usually, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server is installed on its own disk partition or set of partitions, or over another installation of Linux.

Warning

Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server over another installation of Linux (including Red Hat Linux Advanced Server) does not preserve any information (ﬁles or data) from a prior installation. Make sure you save any impor tant ﬁles! To preserve the current data on your existing system, you should back up your data and/or consider performing an upgrade instead.

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server provides the following different types, of installations:

1. Unpartitioned disk space means that available disk space on the hard drive(s) you are installing to has not

been divided into sections for data. When you partition a disk, each partition will behave like a separate disk

drive.

12 Chapter 1. Steps to Get You Started

Advanced Server

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server includes technology and services appropriate for enterprise servers hosting mission critical applications. Ideal for high-availability and failover solutions, Advanced Server is a reliable andpowerful server that delivers the best Red Hat innovations while protecting the stability of your server applications. Advanced Server is intended for the continuous operation of reliable, constant load internet and intranet applications (such as databases), especially supported third-party software solutions.

Custom

A custom installation allows you the greatest ﬂexibility during your installation. Youchoose your boot loader, which packages you want, and more. Custom installations are most appropriate for those users morefamiliar with Red Hat Linux installations and for thoseafraid of losing complete ﬂexibility.

These classes give you the option of simplifying the installation process (with some potential for loss of conﬁguration ﬂexibility), or retaining ﬂexibility with a slightly more complex installation process. Next, take a detailed look at each class, so you can see which one is right for you.

1.4.1. Advanced Server Installations

A Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation will install your choice of the GNOME or KDE desktop environments, or both, and the X Window System (the graphical software on which the desktop environments are based).

Below are the minimum recommended disk space requirements for installations where only one language (such as English) will be installed.

• Advanced Server without a desktop environment: 1.8 GB

• Advanced Server choosing GNOME or KDE : 2.3 GB

• Advanced Server choosing both GNOME and KDE: 2.8 GB

If you plan to choose all package groups (for example, GNOME is a group of packages), as well as select additional individual packages, you may want to allow yourself 3 GB or more of disk space.

1.4.1.1. What an Advanced Server Installation Will Do

If you choose automatic partitioning, an installation will create the following partitions:

• A 100 MB partition (mounted as /boot/efi and formatted as type vfat) in which the Linux kernel,

the ELILO conﬁguration ﬁles, and other related ﬁles reside.

• The size of the swap partition is determined by the amount of RAM in your system and the amount

of space available on your hard drive. For example, if you have 128 MB of RAM then the swap partition created can be 128 MB - 256 MB (twice your RAM), depending on how much disk space is available.

• A root partition (mounted as /) in which all other ﬁles are stored (the exact size of this partition is

dependent on your available disk space).

1.4.2. Custom Installations

The custom installation allows you the most ﬂexibility during your installation. The recommended disk space requirements for a custom installation are as follows:

Chapter 1. Steps to Get You Started 13

• Custom (minimum): 500 MB

• Custom (choosing everything): 4.2 GB

1.4.2.1. What a Custom Installation Will Do

As you might guess from the name, a custom installation puts the emphasis on ﬂexibility. You have complete control over which packages will be installed on your system.

If you choose automatic partitioning, a custom installation will create the following partitions:

• A 100 MB partition (mounted as /boot/efi and formatted as vfat) in which the Linux kernel,

ELILO conﬁguration ﬁles, and other related ﬁles reside.

•

The size of the swap partition is determined by the amount of RAM in your system and the amount of space available on your hard drive. For example, if you have 128 MB of RAM then the swap partition created can be 128 MB - 256 MB (twice your RAM), depending on how much disk space is available.

• A root partition (mounted as /) in which all other ﬁles are stored (the exact size of this partition is

dependent on your available disk space).

14 Chapter 1. Steps to Get You Started

Chapter 2.

Before You Begin the Installation Process

2.1. Installation Overview

Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on an Itanium system is different from installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on an x86 machine. In general, the sequence of steps to a successful installation are the following:

1. Boot into the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) Shell.

2. If you can not boot from the CD-ROM and the system has an LS-120 or LS-240 drive, make an LS-120 diskette from the boot image ﬁle provided with Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

3. Using the EFI Shell and the ELILO boot loader, load and run the kernel, and boot into the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation program.

2.1.1. Disk Space Requirements

Before you begin the installation, be aware that you will need certain amounts of free disk space to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

• At minimum, you will need 512 MB of RAM and 1 GB of free hard disk space to install.

• You should have 1024 MB of RAM and 4.2 GB or more of free hard disk space on your machine

for a full installation.

Depending upon what type of installation you are performing, you may need an LS-120 diskette.

2.2. The EFI Shell

Before you start to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on an Itanium, you will need a basic understanding of the EFI Shell, what it does, and the information it can provide.

The EFI Shell is a console interface used to launch applications (such as the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation program), load EFI protocols and device drivers, and execute simple scripts. It is similar to a DOS console and can access media that is FAT16 (vfat) or FAT32 formatted.

The EFI Shell also contains common utilities that can be used on the EFI system partition. These utilities include edit, type, cp, rm, and mkdir. To see a list of utilities and other commands, type

help at the EFI Shell prompt.

Additional information on EFI can be found at the following URL:

http://developer.intel.com/technology/efi/index.htm

2.2.1. EFI Device Names

The map command can be used to list all devices and ﬁle systems that EFI can recognize. When your Itanium system boots into the EFI shell, it probes your system in the following order:

1. LS-120 or LS-240 drive (if it contains media)

16 Chapter 2. Before You Begin the Installation Process

2. IDE hard drives on the primary IDE interface

3. IDE hard drives on the secondary IDE interface

4. SCSI hard drives on the SCSI interface

5. CD-ROM drives on the IDE interface

6. CD-ROM drives on the SCSI interface

To view the results of this system poll, type the following command at the EFI Shell prompt:

Shellmap

The output is listed in the order the system was probed. So, all FAT16 ﬁle systems are listed ﬁrst, then IDE hard drives, then SCSI hard drives, then IDE CD-ROM drives, and ﬁnally SCSI CD-ROM drives.

For example, output of the map command might look like the following:

Device mapping table

fs0 : VenHw(Unknown Device:00)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000) fs1 : VenHw(Unknown Device:80)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000) fs2 : VenHw(Unknown Device:FF)/CDROM(Entry1)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000) blk0 : VenHw(Unknown Device:00) blk1 : VenHw(Unknown Device:00)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000) blk2 : VenHw(Unknown Device:80) blk3 : VenHw(Unknown Device:80)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000) blk4 : VenHw(Unknown Device:80)/HD(Part2,Sig00000000) blk5 : VenHw(Unknown Device:80)/HD(Part3,Sig00000000) blk6 : VenHw(Unknown Device:80)/HD(Part3,Sig00000000)/HD(Part1,Sig725F7772) blk7 : VenHw(Unknown Device:FF) blk8 : VenHw(Unknown Device:FF)/CDROM(Entry1) blk9 : VenHw(Unknown Device:FF)/CDROM(Entry1)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000)

In this example, there is an LS-120 diskette in the LS-120 drive as well as a CD-ROM in the CDROM drive. All the listings beginning with fs are FAT16 ﬁle systems that EFI can read. All the listings beginning with blk are block devices that EFI recognizes. Both the ﬁle systems and block devices are listed in the order they are probed. Therefore, fs0 is the system partition on the LS-120,

fs1 is the system partition on the hard drive, and fs2 is the system partition on the CD-ROM.

2.2.2. EFI System Partition

When partitioning your hard drive for Linux, you must create a system partition that is FAT16 (vfat) or FAT32 formatted and has a mount point of /boot/efi. This partition will contain the installed Linux kernel(s) as well as the elilo conﬁguration ﬁle (/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/elilo.conf). The elilo.conf ﬁle contains a list of kernels from which you can boot your system.

2.2.3. Booting the Installation Program

Your Itanium system will probably be able to boot the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation program directly from the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD 1. If your Itanium cannot boot the installation program from the CD-ROM, you must boot from a diskette. See Section 2.2.3.2 for more information on booting from a diskette.

Chapter 2. Before You Begin the Installation Process 17

2.2.3.1. Booting the Installation Program from the CD-ROM

To boot from Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD 1 follow these steps:

1. Remove all media except Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD 1.

2. From the Boot Option menu choose EFI Shell.

Note

On some systems, the EFI shell can be found under a System Utilities submenu.

3. At the Shellprompt, change to the ﬁle system on the CD-ROM. For example, in the above sample map output, the system partition on the CD-ROM is fs1. To change to the fs1 ﬁle system, you would type fs1: at the prompt.

4. Type elilo linux to boot into the installation program.

5. Go to Chapter 3 to begin the installation.

2.2.3.2. Booting the Installation Program from an LS-120 Diskette

If your Itanium will not boot from Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD 1, you may need to boot from an LS-120 diskette.

Tip

The installation program supports passing the askmethod boot command to the installation program. This command asks you to select the installation method you would like to use when booting from the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD.

To boot from an LS-120 diskette follow these steps:

1. You will need to create an LS-120 boot image ﬁle diskette from the boot image ﬁle on CD 1:

images/boot.img. To create this diskette in Linux, insert a blank LS-120 diskette and type

the following command at a shell prompt:

dd if=boot.img of=/dev/hda bs=180k

Replace boot.img with the full path to the boot image ﬁle and /dev/hda with the correct device name for the LS-120 diskette drive.

2. Insert the LS-120 diskette you made from the boot image ﬁle boot.img. If you are performing a local CD-ROM installation but booting off the LS-120 diskette, insert the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD 1 also. If you are performing an NFS image, FTP, or HTTP installation, you do not need the CD-ROM.

3. From the Boot Option menu choose EFI Shell.

Note

On some systems, the EFI shell can be found under a System Utilities submenu.

4. At the Shellprompt, change the device to the LS-120 drive by typing the command fs0:, using the example map output above.

5. Type elilo linux to boot into the installation program.

18 Chapter 2. Before You Begin the Installation Process

6. If you are not performing a CD-ROM install, you will need to choose a few basic options for your system and then you will need to select which installation method you would like to use.

7. Go to Chapter 3 for further instructions.

2.2.3.3. Boot Loader Options

To pass options to the boot loader, enter the following at the EFI Shell prompt:



Shell

elilo linux option

Acceptable options that can be passed to the installation program are as follows:

• text — use text mode installation program

• lowres — use 640 x 480 resolution

• dd — use a driver disk

• expert — expert mode

• askmethod — select the installation method you would like to use when booting from the CD

Chapter 3.

Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

This chapter explains how to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server from the CD-ROM using the graphical, mouse-based installation program. The following topics are discussed:

• Getting familiar with the installation program’s user interface

• Starting the installation program

• Selecting an installation method

• Conﬁguration steps during the installation (language, keyboard, mouse, etc.)

• Finishing the installation

3.1. The Graphical Installation Program User Interface

If you have used a graphical user interface (GUI) before, you will be familiar with this process; simply use your mouse to navigate the screens, "click" buttons, or enter text ﬁelds. You can also navigate through the installation using the [Tab] and [Enter] keys.

Note

If you do not wish to use the GUI installation program, the text mode installation program is also available. To start the text mode installation program, type the following command at the EFI Shell prompt:

Shell> elilo linux text

3.1.1. A Note about Virtual Consoles

The Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation program offers more than the dialog boxes of the installation process. Several different kinds of diagnostic messages are available to you, in addition to providing a way to enter commands from a shell prompt. The installation program displays these messages on ﬁve virtual consoles, among which you can switch using a single keystroke combination.

These virtual consoles can be helpful if you encounter a problem while installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server . Messages displayed on the installation or system consoles can help pinpoint a problem. Please see Table 3-1 for a listing of the virtual consoles, keystrokes used to switch to them, and their contents.

Console Keystrokes Contents

1 [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F1] installation dialog 2 [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F2] shell prompt 3 [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F3] install log (messages from

4 [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F4] system-related messages

installation program)

20 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Console Keystrokes Contents

5 [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F5] other messages 7 [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[F7] X graphical display

Table 3-1. Console, Keystrokes, and Contents

Generally, there is no reason to leave the default console (virtual console #7) unless you are attempting to diagnose installation problems.

3.2. The Text Mode Installation Program User Interface

The Red Hat Linux Advanced Server text mode installation program uses a screen-based interface that includes most of the on-screen "widgets" commonly found on graphical user interfaces. Figure 3-1, and Figure 3-2, illustrate the screens you will see.

Figure 3-1. Installation Program Widgets as seen in Boot Loader Conﬁguration

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 21

Figure 3-2. Installation Program Widgets as seen in Disk Druid

Here is a list of the most important widgets shown in Figure 3-1, and Figure 3-2:

• Window — windows (usually referred to as dialogs in this manual) will appear on your screen

throughout the installation process. At times, one window may overlay another; in these cases, you can only interact with the window on top. When you are ﬁnished in that window, it will disappear, allowing you to continue working in the window underneath.

• Checkbox — checkboxes allow you to select or deselect a feature. The box displays either an

asterisk (selected) or a space (unselected). When the cursor is within a checkbox, press [Space] to select an unselected feature or to deselect a selected feature.

• Text Input — text input lines are regions where you can enter information required by the installa-

tion program. When the cursor rests on a text input line, you may enter and/or edit information on that line.

• Text widget — text widgets are regions of the screen for the display of text. At times, text widgets

may also contain other widgets, such as checkboxes. If a text widget contains more information than can be displayed in the space reserved for it, a scroll bar appears; if you position the cursor within the text widget, you can then use the [Up] and [Down] arrow keys to scroll through all the information available. Your current position is shown on the scroll bar by a # character, which moves up and down the scroll bar as you scroll.

• Scroll Bar — scroll bars appear on the side or bottom of a window to control which part of a list or

document is currently in the window’s frame. The scroll bar makes it easy to move to any part of a ﬁle.

• Button widget — button widgets are the primary method of interacting with the installation pro-

gram. You progress through the windows of the installation program by navigating these buttons, using the [Tab] and [Enter] keys. Buttons can be selected when they are highlighted.

• Cursor — although not a widget, the cursor is used to select (and interact) with a particular widget.

As the cursor is moved from widget to widget, it may cause the widget to change color, or you may only see the cursor itself positioned in or next to the widget. In Figure 3-1, the cursor is positioned on the OK button. Figure 3-2, shows the cursor on the Edit button.

3.2.1. Using the Keyboard to Navigate

Navigation through the installation dialogs is performed through a simple set of keystrokes. To move the cursor, use [Left], [Right], [Up], and [Down] arrow keys. Use [Tab], and [Alt]-[Tab] to cycle forward or backward through each widget on the screen. Along the bottom, most screens display a summary of available cursor positioning keys.

22 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

To "press" a button, position the cursor over the button (using [Tab], for example) and press [Space] or [Enter]. To select an item from a list of items, move the cursor to the item you wish to select and press [Enter]. To select an item with a checkbox, move the cursor to the checkbox and press [Space] to select an item. To deselect, press [Space] a second time.

Pressing [F12] accepts the current values and proceeds to the next dialog; it is equivalent to pressing the OK button.

Caution

Unless a dialog box is waiting for your input, do not press any keys during the installation process (doing so may result in unpredictable behavior).

3.2.2. Displaying Online Help

Once the installation program isloaded into memory,you can obtain information about the installation process and options by pressing [F1] through [F6]. For example, press [F2] to see general information about the online help screens.

3.3. Selecting an Installation Method

What type ofinstallation method do you wishto use? The following installation methods are available:

CD-ROM

If you have a CD-ROM drive and the Red Hat Linux CD-ROMs, you can use this method. You will need a boot disk or a bootable CD-ROM. Refer to Section 3.4, for CD-ROM installation instructions.

NFS Image

If you are installing from an NFS server using ISO images or a mirror image of Red Hat Linux, you can use this method. You will need a network boot disk. Refer to Section 3.6, for network installation instructions. Please note that NFS installations may also be performed in GUI mode.

FTP

If you are installing directly from an FTP server, use this method. You will need a network boot disk. Refer to Section 3.7, for FTP installation instructions.

HTTP

If you are installing directly from an HTTP (Web) server, use this method. You will need a network boot disk. Refer to Section 3.8, for HTTP installation instructions.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 23

3.4. Installing from CD-ROM

To install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server from a CD-ROM, choose the CD-ROM option from the boot loader screen and select OK. When prompted, insert the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD into your CD-ROM drive (if you did not boot from the CD-ROM). Once the CD is in the CD-ROM drive, select OK, and press [Enter].

The installation program will then probe your system and attempt to identify your CD-ROM drive. It will start by looking for an IDE (also known as an ATAPI) CD-ROM drive. If found, you will continue to the next stage of the installation process (see Section 3.10).

Note

To abort the installation process at this time, reboot your machine and then eject the boot diskette or CD-ROM. You can safely cancel the installation at any point before the About to Install screen. See Section 3.25 for more information.

If a CD-ROM drive is not detected, you will be asked what type of CD-ROM drive you have. Choose from the following types:

SCSI

Select this if your CD-ROM drive is attached to a supported SCSI adapter; the installation program will then ask you to choose a SCSI driver. Choose the driver that most closely resembles your adapter. You may specify options for the driver if necessary; however, most drivers will detect your SCSI adapter automatically.

Other

If your CD-ROM drive is neither an IDE nor a SCSI, it is an other. Sound cards with proprietary CD-ROM interfaces are good examples of this type of CD-ROM. The installation program will display a list of drivers for supported CD-ROM drives — choose a driver and, if necessary, specify any driver options. It is recommended that you use the oldcdrom.img image ﬁle

Tip

A partial list of optional parameters for CD-ROM drives can be found in the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Reference Guide, in the General Parameters and Modules appendix.

3.4.1. What If the IDE CD-ROM Was Not Found?

If you have an IDE (ATAPI) CD-ROM, but the installation program fails to ﬁnd your IDE (ATAPI) CD-ROM and asks you what type of CD-ROM drive you have, try the following boot command. Restart the installation, and at the boot: prompt enter linux hdX=cdrom. Replace the X with one of the following letters, depending on the interface the unit is connected to, and whether it is conﬁgured as master or slave (also known as primary and secondary):

• a — ﬁrst IDE controller, master

• b — ﬁrst IDE controller, slave

24 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

• c — second IDE controller, master

• d — second IDE controller, slave

If you have a third and/or fourth controller, continue assigning letters in alphabetical order, going from controller to controller, and master to slave.

3.5. Preparing for a Network Installation

If you are performing a network installation, the Conﬁgure TCP/IP dialog appears; for an explanation of this dialog, go to Section 3.18, and then return here.

3.5.1. Setting Up the Server

Because the installation program is capable of installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server from multiple CD-ROMs, if you intend to support NFS, FTP, or HTTP installations you must copy the RedHat directory from each CD-ROM comprising Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 onto a disk drive:

• For each binary CD-ROM, execute the following commands:

• mount /mnt/cdrom

• cp -var /mnt/cdrom/RedHat /location/of/disk/space

Where /location/of/disk/space is a directory you create such as /export/7.3/.

• umount /mnt/cdrom

• Please note that the Release Notes are not included in the RedHat directory. Unless they are specif-

ically copied over, the Release Notes will not be available during your installation. The Release Notes are also available online from http://www.redhat.com/docs.

• Next, make /location/of/disk/space accessible to the installation program (for example, ex-

porting it for NFS installations) by editing the /etc/exports ﬁle and adding the line:

/location/of/disk/space *(ro)

• Finally, run the following command to make /location/of/disk/space available as read-only

to each system to mount:

/sbin/service nfs reload

If you are not sure how to do this, refer to the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Customization Guide and the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Reference Guide for more information.

3.6. Installing via NFS

The NFS dialog (Figure 3-3) applies only if you are installing from an NFS server (if you selected

NFS Image in the Installation Method dialog).

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 25

Figure 3-3. NFS Setup Dialog

Enter the fully-qualiﬁed domain name or IP address of your NFS server. For example, if you are installing from a host named eastcoast in the domain redhat.com, enter eastcoast.redhat.com in the NFS Server ﬁeld.

Next, enter the name of the exported directory. If you followed the setup described in Section 3.5, you would enter the directory /location/of/disk/space/ which contains the RedHat directory.

If the NFS server is exporting a mirror of the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation tree, enter the directory which contains the RedHat directory. (If you do not know this directory path, ask your system administrator.) For example, if your NFS server contains the directory

/mirrors/redhat/ia64/RedHat, enter /mirrors/redhat/ia64.

If the NFS server is exporting the ISO images of the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server CD-ROMs, enter the directory which contains the ISO images.

Next you will see the Welcome dialog.

3.7. Installing via FTP

The FTP dialog (Figure 3-4) applies only if you are installing from an FTP server (if you selected FTP in the Installation Method dialog). This dialog allows you to identify the FTP server from which you are installing Red Hat Linux.

Enter the name or IP address of the FTP site you are installing from, and the name of the directory containing the RedHat installation ﬁles for your architecture. For example, if the FTP site contains the directory /mirrors/redhat/ia64/RedHat, enter /mirrors/redhat/ia64.

26 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-4. FTP Setup Dialog

If everything has been speciﬁed properly, a message box appears indicating that base/hdlist is being retrieved.

Next you will see the Welcome dialog.

Tip

You can also install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server using ISO images without copying them into a single tree by loopback mounting them as:

disc1/,disc2/,disc3/

3.8. Installing via HTTP

The HTTP dialog (Figure 3-5) applies only if you are installing from an HTTP server (if you selected HTTP in the Installation Method dialog). This dialog prompts you for information about the HTTP server from which you are installing Red Hat Linux.

Enter the name or IP address of the HTTP site you are installing from, and the name of the directory there containing the RedHat installation ﬁles for your architecture. For example, if the HTTP site contains the directory /mirrors/redhat/ia64/RedHat, enter /mirrors/redhat/ia64.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 27

Figure 3-5. HTTP Setup Dialog

If everything has been speciﬁed properly, a message box appears indicating that base/hdlist is being retrieved.

Next you will see the Welcome dialog.

3.9. Welcome to Red Hat Linux

The Welcome screen does not prompt you for any input. Please read over the help text in the left panel for additional instructions and information on where to register your Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Advanced Server product.

Please notice the Hide Help button at the bottom left corner of the screen. The help screen is open by default. If you do not want to view the help information, click on Hide Help to minimize the help portion of the screen.

Click on the Next button to continue.

3.10. Language Selection

Using your mouse, select the language you would prefer to use for the installation and as the system default (see Figure 3-6).

Selecting the appropriate language will also help target your time zone conﬁguration later in the installation. The installation program will try to deﬁne the appropriate time zone based on what you specify on this screen.

Once you select the appropriate language, click Next to continue.

28 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-6. Language Selection

3.11. Keyboard Conﬁguration

Choose the keyboard model that best ﬁts your system (see Figure 3-7). If you cannot ﬁnd an exact match, choose the best Generic match for your keyboard type (for example, Generic 101-key PC).

Next, choose the correct layout type for your keyboard (for example, U.S. English). Creating special characters with multiple keystrokes (such as Ñ, Ô, and Ç) is done using "dead keys"

(also known as compose key sequences). Dead keys are enabled by default. If you do not wish to use them, select Disable dead keys.

Tip

The following example will help you determine if you need dead keys enabled. An example of a dead key is the backspace (^H) key on a US English 101 Standard Keyboard. Dead keys are not exclusive to non-English keyboards.

To test your keyboard conﬁguration, use the blank text ﬁeld at the bottom of the screen to enter text. Once you have made the appropriate selections, click Next to continue.

Tip

To change your keyboard type after you have installed Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, log in as root and use the /usr/sbin/kbdconfig command. Alternatively, you can type setup at the root prompt.

To become root, type su - at the shell prompt in a terminal window and then press [Enter]. Then, enter the root password.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 29

Figure 3-7. Keyboard Conﬁguration

Tip

To re-enable dead keys (assuming you chose to disable them during the installation), you must comment out the line disabling dead keys in the XF86Config-4 ﬁle (or, it you are using XFree86 version 3, the XF86Config ﬁle) in /etc/X11.

An InputDevice section, that would disable dead keys on a keyboard layout that used dead keys (for example, German), would look similar to the following:

Section "InputDevice"

# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" EndSection

By default, the keyboard layout for various languages which use dead keys should have them enabled unless the nodeadkeys option is present.

Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "keyboard" Option "XkbRules" "xfree86" Option "XkbModel" "pc101" Option "XkbLayout" "de"

3.12. Mouse Conﬁguration

Choose the correct mouse type for your system. If you cannot ﬁnd an exact match, choose a mouse type that you are sure is compatible with your system (see Figure 3-8).

To determine your mouse’s interface, follow the mouse cable back to where it plugs into your system and use the following diagrams.

If your mouse is a serial mouse, the port will look similar to

If your mouse is a PS/2 mouse, the port will look similar to .

30 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

If your mouse is a USB mouse, the port will look similar to .

If your mouse is a AT (Advanced Technology) mouse, the port will look similar to . If you cannot ﬁnd a mouse that you are sure is compatible with your system, select one of the Generic

entries, based on your mouse’s number of buttons, and its interface.

Tip

If you have a scroll mouse, select the MS Intellimouse entry (with your proper mouse port) as the compatible mouse type.

Figure 3-8. Mouse Conﬁguration

If you have a PS/2 or a bus mouse, you do not need to pick a port and device. If you have a serial mouse, you should choose the correct port and device that your serial mouse is on.

The Emulate 3 Buttons checkbox allows you to use a two-button mouse as if it had three buttons. In general, the X Window System is easier to use with a three-button mouse. If you select this checkbox, you can emulate a third, "middle" button by pressing both mouse buttons simultaneously.

Tip

To change your mouse conﬁguration after you have completed the installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, become root; then use the /usr/sbin/mousecon fig command from a shell prompt.

To conﬁgure your mouse to work as a left-handed mouse, reset the order of the mouse buttons. To do this, after you have booted your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server system, type gpm -B 321 at the shell prompt. You can also change this setting in GNOME by going to the main menu and selecting

Programs => Settings => Peripherals => Mouse. In KDE, select Preferences => Peripherals => Mouse.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 31

3.13. Install Options

Choose the type of installation you would like to perform (see Figure 3-9). Red Hat Linux allows you to choose the installation type that best ﬁts your needs. Your options are Advanced Server and

Custom.

Figure 3-9. Choosing Install or Upgrade

For more information about the different installation classes, please refer to Section 1.4.

3.14. Disk Partitioning Setup

Partitioning allows you to divide your hard drive into isolated sections, where each section behaves as its own hard drive. Partitioning is particularly useful if you run more than one operating system. If you are not sure how you want your system to be partitioned, read Appendix C for more information.

On this screen, you can choose to perform automatic partitioning, or manual partitioning using Disk Druid or parted (see Figure 3-10).

Automatic partitioning allows you to perform an installation without having to partition your drive(s) yourself. If you do not feel comfortable with partitioning your system, it is recommended that you do not choose to partition manually and instead let the installation program partition for you.

To partition manually, choose either the Disk Druid or parted (recommended for experts only) partitioning tool.

32 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-10. Disk Partitioning Setup

If you chose to manually partition using Disk Druid, refer to Section 3.16. If you chose to manually partition using parted, refer to Section 3.17.

3.15. Automatic Partitioning

Automatic partitioning allows you to have some control concerning what data is removed (if any) from your system. Your options are:

• Remove all Linux partitions on this system — select this option to remove only Linux partitions

(partitions created from a previous Linux installation). This will not remove other partitions you may have on your hard drive(s).

• Remove all partitions on this system — select this option to remove all partitions on your

hard drive(s) (this includes partitions created by other operating systems such as Windows 95/98/NT/2000).

Caution

If you select this option, all data on the selected hard drive(s) will be removed by the installation program. Do not select this option if you have information that you want to keep on the hard drive(s) where you are installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

• Keep all partitions and use existing free space — select this option to retain your current data

and partitions, assuming you have enough free space available on your hard drive(s).

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 33

Figure 3-11. Automatic Partitioning

Using your mouse, choose the hard drive(s) on which you want Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to be installed. If you have two or more hard drives, you can choose which hard drive(s) should contain this installation. Unselected hard drives, and any data on them, will not be touched.

To review and make any necessary changes to the partitions created by automatic partitioning, select the Review option. After selecting Review and clicking Next to move forward, you will see the partitions created for you in Disk Druid. You will also be able to make modiﬁcations to these partitions if they do not meet your needs.

Click Next once you have made your selections to proceed.

3.16. Partitioning Your System

If you chose automatic partitioning and did not select Review, please skip ahead to Section 3.18. If you chose automatic partitioning and selected Review, you can either accept the current partition

settings (click Next), or modify the setup using Disk Druid, the manual partitioning tool. If you chose Manually partition with parted, please skip ahead to Section 3.17. At this point, you must tell the installation program where to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

This is done by deﬁning mount points for one or more disk partitions in which Red Hat Linux Advanced Server will be installed. You may also need to create and/or delete partitions at this time (refer to Figure 3-12).

Note

If you have not yet planned how you will set up your partitions, refer to Appendix C. At a bare minimum, you will need a /boot/efi partition of approximately 100 MB and of type vfat, a swap partition of at least 512 MB, and an appropriately-sized root (/) partition.

34 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-12. Partitioning with Disk Druid

The partitioning tool used in Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 is Disk Druid. With the exception of certain esoteric situations, Disk Druid can handle the partitioning requirements for a typical Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation.

3.16.1. Graphical Display of Hard Drive(s)

Disk Druid offers a graphical representation of your hard drive(s). Using your mouse, click once to highlight a particular ﬁeld in the graphical display. Double-click to

edit an existing partition or to create a partition out of existing free space. Above the display, you will see the drive name (such as /dev/hda ), the geom (which shows the

hard disk’s geometry and consists of three numbers representing the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors as reported by the hard disk), and the model of the hard drive as detected by the installation program.

3.16.2. Disk Druid’s Buttons

These buttons control Disk Druid’s actions. They are used to change the attributes of a partition (for example the ﬁle system type and mount point) and also to create RAID devices. Buttons on this screen are also used to accept the changes you have made, or to exit Disk Druid. For further explanation, take a look at each button in order:

• New: Used to request a new partition. When selected, a dialog box appears containing ﬁelds (such

as mount point and size) that must be ﬁlled in.

• Edit: Used to modify attributes of the partition currently selected in the Partitions section. Select-

ing Edit opens a dialog box. Some or all of the ﬁelds can be edited, depending on whether the partition information has already been written to disk.

You can also edit free space as represented in the graphical display to create a new partition within that space. Either highlight the free space and then select the Edit button, or double-click on the free space to edit it.

• Delete: Used to remove the partition currently highlighted in the Current Disk Partitions section.

You will be asked to conﬁrm the deletion of any partition.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 35

• Reset: Used to restore Disk Druid to its original state. All changes made will be lost if you Reset

the partitions.

• Make RAID: Make RAID can be used if you want to provide redundancy to any or all disk parti-

tions. It should only be used if you have experience using RAID. To read more about RAID, please refer to RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) in the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.

To make a RAID device, you must ﬁrst create software RAID partitions. Once you have created two or more software RAID partitions, select Make RAID to join the software RAID partitions into a RAID device.

3.16.3. Partition Fields

Above the partition hierarchy are labels which present information about the partitions you are creating. The labels are deﬁned as follows:

• Device: This ﬁeld displays the partition’s device name.

• Start: This ﬁeld shows the sector on your hard drive where the partition begins.

• End: This ﬁeld shows the sector on your hard drive where the partition ends.

• Size: This ﬁeld shows the partition’s size (in MB).

• Type: This ﬁeld shows the partition’s type (for example, ext2, ext3, or vfat).

• Mount Point: A mount point is the location within the directory hierarchy at which a volume exists;

the volume is "mounted" at this location. This ﬁeld indicates where the partition will be mounted. If a partition exists, but is not set, then you need to deﬁne its mount point. Double-click on the partition or click the Edit button.

• Format: This ﬁeld shows if the partition being created will be formatted.

3.16.4. Recommended Partitioning Scheme

Unless you have a reason for doing otherwise, we recommend that you create the following partitions:

• A /boot/efi partition (100 MB minimum) — the partition mounted on /boot/efi contains all

the installed kernels, the initrd images, and ELILO conﬁguration ﬁles.

/boot/efi is Type vfat

You must create a /boot/efi partition of type vfat and at least 100 MB in size as the ﬁrst primary partition.

• A swap partition (512 MB minimum) — swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In

other words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing. If you are unsure about what size swap partition to create, make it twice the amount of RAM on your machine. It must be of type swap.

• A root partition (900 MB-4.0 GB) — this is where "/" (the root directory) is located. In this

setup, all ﬁles (except those stored in /boot/efi) are on the root partition. It must be of type ext3 or ext2.

36 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

3.16.5. Adding Partitions

To add a new partition, select the New button. A dialog box appears (see Figure 3-13).

Note

You must dedicate at least one partition to Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, and optionally more. For more information, see Appendix C.

Figure 3-13. Creating a New Partition

• Mount Point: Enter the partition’s mount point. For example, if this partition should be the root

partition, enter /; enter /boot for the /boot partition, and so on. You can also use the pull-down menu to choose the correct mount point for your partition.

• File System Type: Using the pull-down menu, select the appropriate ﬁle system type for this parti-

tion. For more information on ﬁle system types, see Section 3.16.5.1.

• Allowable Drives: This ﬁeld contains a list of the hard disks installed on your system. If a hard

disk’s box is highlighted, then a desired partition can be created on that hard disk. If the box is not checked, then the partition will never be created on that hard disk. By using different checkbox settings, you can have Disk Druid place partitions as you see ﬁt, or let Disk Druid decide where partitions should go.

• Size (Megs): Enter the size (in megabytes) of the partition. Note, this ﬁeld starts with a "1" (one);

unless changed, only a 1 MB partition will be created.

• Additional Size Options: Choose whether to keep this partition at a ﬁxed size, to allow it to "grow"

(ﬁll up the available hard drive space) to a certain point, or to allow it to grow to ﬁll any remaining hard drive space available.

If you choose Fill all space up to (MB), you must give size constraints in the ﬁeld to the right of this option. This allows you to keep a certain amount of space free on your hard drive for future use.

• Force to be a primary partition: Select whether the partition you are creating should be one of the

ﬁrst four partitions on the hard drive. If unselected, the partition created will be a logical partition. See Section C.1.3, for more information.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 37

• Check for bad blocks: Checking for bad blocks can help prevent data loss by locating the bad

blocks on a drive and making a list of them to prevent using them in the future. If you wish to check for bad blocks while formatting each ﬁle system, please make sure to select this option.

Selecting Check for bad blocks may dramatically increase your total installation time. Since most newer hard drives are quite large in size, checking for bad blocks may take a long time; the length of time depends on the size of your hard drive. If you choose to check for bad blocks, you can monitor your progress on virtual console #6.

• Ok: Select Ok once you are satisﬁed with the settings and wish to create the partition.

• Cancel: Select Cancel if you do not want to create the partition.

3.16.5.1. File System Types

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server allows you to create different partition types, based on the ﬁle system they will use. The following is a brief description of the different ﬁle systems available, and how they can be utilized.

• ext2 — An ext2 ﬁle system supports standard Unix ﬁle types (regular ﬁles, directories, symbolic

links, etc). It provides the ability to assign long ﬁle names, up to 255 characters. Versions prior to Red Hat Linux 7.2 used ext2 ﬁle systems by default.

• ext3 — The ext3 ﬁle system is based on the ext2 ﬁle system and has one main advantage —

journaling. Using a journaling ﬁle system reduces time spent recovering a ﬁle system after a crash as there is no need to fsck1the ﬁle system. The ext3 ﬁle system will selected by default and is highly recommended.

• software RAID — Creating two or more software RAID partitions allows you to create a RAID

device. For more information regarding RAID, refer to the chapter RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) in the Ofﬁcial Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.

• swap — Swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is written to a

swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your system is processing.

• vfat — The VFAT ﬁle system is a Linux ﬁle system that is compatible with Windows 95/NT long

ﬁlenames on the FAT ﬁle system. This ﬁle system must be used for the /boot/efi partition.

3.16.6. Editing Partitions

To edit a partition, select the Edit button or double-click on the existing partition.

Note

If the partition already exists on your hard disk, you will only be able to change the partition’s mount point. If you want to make any other changes, you will need to delete the partition and recreate it.

1. The fsck application is used to check the ﬁle system for metadata consistency and optionally repair one or

more Linux ﬁle systems.

38 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

3.16.7. Deleting a Partition

To delete a partition, highlight it in the Partitions section and click the Delete button. You will be asked to conﬁrm the deletion.

Skip to Section 3.18 for further installation instructions.

3.17. Partitioning with parted

This section applies only if you chose to use parted to partition your system. To partition your system without using parted, please skip to Section 3.15 for automatic partitioning

or Section 3.16 for partitioning with Disk Druid. If you have already completed disk partitioning, skip to Section 3.18 for further installation instruc-

tions.

Caution

Unless you have previously used parted and understand how it works, we do not recommend that you use it. It is much easier for new users to accidentally corrupt or lose data using parted .

Disk Druid is easier to understand than parted. To exit parted, click Back to return to the previous screen, deselect parted, and then click Next.

If you have chosen to use parted, the next screen will prompt you to select a drive to partition using parted. Once you have chosen which drive to partition, you will be presented with the parted command screen. If you do not know what command to use, type [help] at the prompt for help.

/boot/efi is Type DOS

You must create a /boot/efi partition of type DOS as the ﬁrst primary partition with the size of at least 100 MB.

When you are ﬁnished making partitions, type [quit] to quit (parted automatically saves any changes you make).

Note

Changes you make will take effect immediately using parted. Once you have ﬁnished making changes, you can quit parted using the quit command.

After you have partitioned your drive(s), click Next. You will need to use Disk Druid to assign mount points to the partitions you just created with parted.

You will not be able to add new partitions using Disk Druid, but you can edit mount points for the partitions you have already created. For each partition created with parted, click on the Edit button, choose the appropriate mount point for that partition from the pull-down menu, and click on OK.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 39

3.18. Network Conﬁguration

If you do not have a network device, you will not see this screen. Skip ahead to Section 3.19. If you have a network device and you have not already conﬁgured your networking (such as booting

from a network boot disk you created and entering in your network information as prompted), you now have the opportunity (as shown in Figure 3-14) to do so.

If you have multiple devices, you will see a tab for each device. You may switch between devices (for example, between eth0 and eth1) and the information you provide on each tab will be speciﬁc to each device.

Indicate if you would like to conﬁgure your IP address using DHCP (Dynamic Host Conﬁguration Protocol). If you select Activate on boot, your network interface will be started when you boot. Ifyou do not have DHCP client access or you are unsure what to provide here, please contact your network administrator.

Next enter, where applicable, the IP Address, Netmask, Network, and Broadcast addresses. If you are unsure about any of these, please contact your network administrator.

If you have a fully qualiﬁed domain name for the network device, enter it in the Hostname ﬁeld. Finally, enter the Gateway and Primary DNS (and if applicable the Secondary DNS and Ternary

DNS) addresses.

Figure 3-14. Network Conﬁguration

Note

Do not use the numbers as seen in this sample conﬁguration. These values will not work for your own network conﬁguration. If you are not sure what values to enter, contact your network administrator for assistance.

40 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Tip

Even if your computer is not part of a network, you can enter a hostname for your system. If you do not take this opportunity to enter a name, your system will be known as localhost.

3.19. Firewall Conﬁguration

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server offers ﬁrewall protection for enhanced system security. A ﬁrewall exists between your computer and the network, and determines which resources on your computer remote users on the network can access. A properly conﬁgured ﬁrewall can greatly increase the security of your system.

Figure 3-15. Firewall Conﬁguration

Choose the appropriate security level for your system.

High

If you choose High, your system will not accept connections (other than the default settings) that are not explicitly deﬁned by you. By default, only the following connections are allowed:

• DNS replies

• DHCP — so any network interfaces that use DHCP can be properly conﬁgured

If you choose High, your ﬁrewall will not allow the following:

• Active mode FTP (passive mode FTP, used by default in most clients, should still work)

• IRC DCC ﬁle transfers

• RealAudio™

• Remote X Window System clients

If you are connecting your system to the Internet, but do not plan to run a server, this is the safest choice. If additional services are needed, you can choose Customize to allow speciﬁc services through the ﬁrewall.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 41

Note

If you select a medium or high ﬁrewall to be setup during this installation, network authentication methods (NIS and LDAP) will not work.

Medium

If you choose Medium, your ﬁrewall will not allow remote machines to have access to certain resources on your system. By default, access to the following resources are not allowed:

• Ports lower than 1023 — the standard reserved ports, used by most system services, such as

FTP, SSH, telnet, HTTP, and NIS.

• The NFS server port (2049) — NFS is disabled for both remote severs and local clients.

• The local X Window System display for remote X clients.

• The X Font server port (by default, xfs does not listen on the network; it is disabled in the font

server).

If you want to allow resources such as RealAudio™ while still blocking access to normal system services, choose Medium. Select Customize to allow speciﬁc services through the ﬁrewall.

Note

If you select a medium or high ﬁrewall to be setup during this installation, network authentication methods (NIS and LDAP) will not work.

No Firewall

No ﬁrewall provides complete access to your system and does no security checking. Security checking is the disabling of access to certain services. This should only be selected if you are running on a trusted network (not the Internet) or plan to do more ﬁrewall conﬁguration later.

Choose Customize to add trusted devices or to allow additional incoming services.

Trusted Devices

Selecting any of the Trusted Devices allows access to your system for all trafﬁc from that device; it is excluded from the ﬁrewall rules. For example, if you are running a local network, but are connected to the Internet via a PPP dialup, you can check eth0 and any trafﬁc coming from your local network will be allowed. Selecting eth0 as trusted means all trafﬁc over the Ethernet is allowed, put the ppp0 interface is still ﬁrewalled. If you want to restrict trafﬁc on an interface, leave it unchecked.

It is not recommended that you make any device that is connected to public networks, such as the Internet, a Trusted Device.

Allow Incoming

Enabling these options allow the speciﬁed services to pass through the ﬁrewall.

DHCP

If you allow incoming DHCP queries and replies, you allow any network interface that uses DHCP to determine its IP address. DHCP is normally enabled. If DHCP is not enabled, your computer can no longer get an IP address.

42 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

SSH

Secure SHell (SSH) is a suite of tools for logging into and executing commands on a remote machine. If you plan to use SSH tools to access your machine through a ﬁrewall, enable this option. You need to have the openssh-server package installed in order to access your machine remotely, using SSH tools.

Telnet

Telnet is a protocol for logging into remote machines. Telnet communications are unencrypted and provide no security from network snooping. Allowing incoming Telnet access is not recommended. If you do want to allow inbound Telnet access, you will need to install the telnet-server package.

WWW (HTTP)

The HTTP protocol is used by Apache (and by other Web servers) to serve webpages. If you plan on making your Web server publicly available, enable this option. This option is not required for viewing pages locally or for developing webpages. You will need to install the apache package if you want to serve webpages.

Enabling WWW (HTTP) will not open a port for HTTPS. To enable HTTPS, specify it in the Other ports ﬁeld.

Mail (SMTP)

If you want to allow incoming mail delivery through your ﬁrewall, so that remote hosts can connect directly to your machine to deliver mail, enable this option. You do not need to enable this if you collect your mail from your ISP’s server using POP3 or IMAP, or if you use a tool such as fetchmail. Note that an improperly conﬁgured SMTP server can allow remote machines to use your server to send spam.

FTP

The FTP protocol is used to transfer ﬁles between machines on a network. If you plan on making your FTP server publicly available, enable this option. You need to install the wu-

ftpd (and possibly the anonftp) package for this option to be useful.

Other ports

You can allow access to ports which are not listed here, by listing them in the Other ports ﬁeld. Use the following format: port:protocol. For example, if you want to allow IMAP access through your ﬁrewall, you can specify imap:tcp. You can also explicitly specify numeric ports; to allow UDP packets on port 1234 through the ﬁrewall, enter 1234:udp. To specify multiple ports, separate them with commas.

3.20. Language Support Selection

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server can install and support multiple languages for use on your system. You must select a language to use as the default language. The default language will be used on your

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server system once installation is complete. If you choose to install other languages, you can change your default language after the installation.

If you are only going to use one language on your system, selecting only that language will save signiﬁcant disk space. The default language is the language you selected to use during the installation. However, if you select only one language, you will only be able to use that speciﬁed language after the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation is complete.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 43

Figure 3-16. Language Support Selection

To use more than one language on your system, choose speciﬁc languages to be installed or select all languages to have all available languages installed on your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server system.

Use the Reset button to cancel your selections. Resetting will revert to the default; only the language you selected for use during the installation will be installed.

3.21. Time Zone Conﬁguration

You can set your time zone by selecting your computer’s physical location or by specifying your time zone’s offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Notice the two tabs at the top of the screen (see Figure 3-17). The ﬁrst tab allows you to conﬁgure your time zone by your location. You can specify different areas to view: World, North America, South America, Paciﬁc Rim, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

On the interactive map, you can also click on a speciﬁc city, which is marked by a yellow dot; a red X will appear indicating your selection. You can also scroll through a list and choose a time zone.

The second tab allows you to specify a UTC offset. The tab displays a list of offsets to choose from, as well as an option to set daylight saving time.

44 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-17. Conﬁguring the Time Zone

On both tabs, you can select System Clock uses UTC. Please select this if you know that your system is set to UTC.

Tip

If you wish to change your time zone conﬁguration after you have booted your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server system, become root and use the /usr/sbin/timeconfig command.

3.22. Account Conﬁguration

The Account Conﬁguration screen allows you to set your root password. Additionally, you can set up user accounts for you to log in to once the installation is complete (see Figure 3-18).

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 45

Figure 3-18. Account Creation

3.22.1. Setting the Root Password

Setting up a root account and password is one of the most important steps during your installation. Your root account is similar to the administrator account used on Windows NT machines. The root account is used to install packages, upgrade RPMs, and perform most system maintenance. Logging in as root gives you complete control over your system.

Use the root account only for system administration. Create a non-root account for your general use and su - to root when you need to ﬁx something quickly. These basic rules will minimize the chances of a typo or an incorrect command doing damage to your system.

Tip

To become root, type su - at the shell prompt in a terminal window and then press [Enter]. Then, enter the root password and press [Enter].

The installation program will prompt you to set a root password2for your system. You must enter a root password. The installation program will not let you proceed to the next section without entering a root password.

The root password must be at least six characters long; the password you type is not echoed to the screen. You must enter the password twice; if thetwo passwords donot match, the installation program will ask you to enter them again.

You should make the root password something you can remember, but not something that is easy for someone else to guess. Your name, your phone number, qwerty, password, root, 123456, and anteater are all examples of bad passwords. Good passwords mix numerals with upper and lower case letters and do not contain dictionary words: Aard387vark or 420BMttNT , for example. Remember that the password is case-sensitive. If you write down your password, keep it in a secure place. However, it is recommended that you do not write down this or any password you create.

2. A root password is the administrative password for your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server system. You should

only log in as root whenneeded for system maintenance. The root account does not operate within the restrictions

placed on normal user accounts, so changes made as root can have implications for your entire system.

46 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Note

Do not use one of the example passwords offered in this manual. Using one of these passwords could be considered a security risk.

Note

The root user (also known as the superuser) has complete access to the entire system; for this reason, logging in as the root user is best done only to perform system maintenance or administration.

3.22.2. Setting Up User Accounts

If you choose to create a user account now, you will have an account to log in to once the installation has completed. This allows you to safely and easily log into your computer without having to be root to create your user account.

Enter an account name. Then enter and conﬁrm a password for that user account. Enter the full name of the account user and press Add. Your account information will be added to the account list, and the user account ﬁelds will be cleared so that you can add another user.

Figure 3-19. Creating a User Account

Choose New to add a new, non-root, user. Enter the user’s information and use the Add button to add the user to the account list.

You can also Edit or Delete the user accounts you have created and no longer want.

3.23. Package Group Selection

After your partitions have been selected and conﬁgured for formatting, you are ready to select packages for installation.

Note

Unless you choose a custom installation, the installation program will automatically choose most packages for you. However, you must select either GNOME or KDE (or both) to install a graphical environment.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 47

GNOME and KDE are both graphical desktop environments3that handle the overall look and feel of your system. You must choose one of these to have a default graphical setup, but you can also install both to determine for yourself which you prefer.

You can select components, which group packages together according to function (for example, GNOME or Software Development ), individual packages, or a combination of the two.

To select a component, click on the checkbox beside it (see Figure 3-20).

Figure 3-20. Package Group Selection

Select each component you wish to install. Selecting Everything (at the end of the component list) during a custom installation installs all packages included with Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. If you select every package, you will need approximately 3.7 GB of free disk space.

Toselect packages individually, check the Select Individual Packages box at the bottom of the screen.

3.23.1. Selecting Individual Packages

After selecting the components you wish to install, you can select or deselect individual packages using your mouse (see Figure 3-21).

You can choose to view the individual packages in tree view or ﬂat view.

Tree view allows you to see the packages grouped by application type. Flat view allows you to see all of the packages in an alphabetical listing on the right of the screen.

3. A desktop environment in Linux is similar to the environment you might see in other operating systems.

However, environments differ in their look and feel and are easily customized for your individual needs.

48 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-21. Selecting Individual Packages

Using Tree view, you see a listing of package groups. When you expand this list (by double-clicking on the folder arrow beside apackage group name) and pick one group,the list of packages in that group appears in the panel on the right. Flat view allows you to see all of the packages in an alphabetical listing on the right of the screen.

To sort packages alphabetically, click on the Package tab. To sort packages by size, click on the Size (MB) tab.

To select an individual package, double-click the checkbox beside the package name. A check mark in the box means that a package has been selected.

For more information about a speciﬁc package, click on the individual package name. The package information will appear at the bottom of the screen.

You can also select or deselect all packages listed within a particular group, by clicking on the Select all in group or Unselect all in group buttons.

Note

Some packages (such as the kernel and certain libraries) are required for every Red Hat Linux Advanced Server system and are not available to select or deselect. These base packages are selected by default.

3.23.2. Unresolved Dependencies

Many software packages, in order to work correctly, depend on other software packages that must be installed on your system. For example, many of the graphical Red Hat system administration tools require the python and pythonlib packages. To make sure your system has all the packages it needs in order to be fully functional, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server checks these package dependencies each time you install or remove software packages.

If any package requires another package which you have not selected to install, the program presents a list of these unresolved dependencies and gives you the opportunity to resolve them (see Figure 3-22).

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 49

The Unresolved Dependencies screen appears only if you are missing packages that are needed by the packages you have selected. At the bottom of the screen, under the list of missing packages, an Install packages to satisfy dependencies checkbox is selected by default. If you leave this checked, the installation program will resolve dependencies automatically by adding all required packages to the list of selected packages.

Figure 3-22. Unresolved Dependencies

If you do not wish to install packages that require other packages, select Do not install packages that have dependencies.

To install only the packages you have selected and leave the dependencies unresolved, select Ignore package dependencies.

3.24. X Conﬁguration — Video Card

The ﬁrst part of X conﬁguration deals with video card conﬁguration.

3.24.1. Video Card Conﬁguration

Xconﬁgurator will now present a list of video cards for you to choose from. If you decided to install the X Window System packages, you now have the opportunity to conﬁgure

an X server for your system. If you did not choose to install the X Window System packages, skip ahead to Section 3.25.

If your video card does not appear on the list (see Figure 3-23), X may not support it. However, if you have technical knowledge about your card, you may choose Unlisted Card and attempt to conﬁgure it by matching your card’s video chipset with one of the available X servers.

50 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-23. Video Card Setup

Next, enter the amount of video memory installed on your video card. If you are not sure, please consult the documentation accompanying your video card. You will not damage your video card by choosing more memory than is available, but the X server may not start correctly if you do.

If you decide that the values you have selected are incorrect, youcan click the Restore original values button to return to the suggested settings.

You can also select Skip X Conﬁguration if you would rather conﬁgure X after the installation or not at all.

3.25. Preparing to Install

You should now see a screen preparing you for the installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. For your reference, a complete log of your installation can be found in /root/install.log once

you reboot your system.

Warning

If, for some reason, you would rather not continue with the installation process, this is your last opportunity to safely cancel the process and reboot your machine. Once you press the Next button, partitions will be written and packages will be installed. If you wish to abort the installation, you should reboot now before any existing information on any hard drive is rewritten.

To cancel this installation process, press your computer’s Reset button or use the [Control]-[Alt][Delete] key combination to restart your machine.

3.26. Installing Packages

At this point there is nothing left for you to do until all the packages have been installed (see Figure 3-24). How quickly this happens depends on the number of packages you have selected and your computer’s speed.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 51

Figure 3-24. Installing Packages

3.27. X Conﬁguration — Monitor and Customization

In order to complete X conﬁguration, you must conﬁgure your monitor and customize your X settings.

3.27.1. Conﬁguring Your Monitor

If you chose to skip X conﬁguration, go to Section 3.28. Xconﬁgurator, the X Window System conﬁguration tool, presents a list of monitors for you to choose

from. In the list, you can either use the monitor that is automatically detected for you, or choose another monitor.

If your monitor does not appear on the list, select the most appropriate Generic model available. By selecting a Generic monitor, Xconﬁgurator will suggest horizontal and vertical sync ranges. These values are generally available in the documentation which accompanies your monitor, or from your monitor’s vendor or manufacturer; please check your documentation to make sure these values are set correctly.

Note

If you are installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on a laptop with an LCD screen, you should select the most appropriate Generic model available.

52 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure 3-25. Monitor Selection

Caution

Do not select a monitor similar to your monitor unless you are certain that the monitor you are selecting does not exceed the capabilities of your monitor. Doing so may overclock your monitor and damage or destroy it.

The horizontal and vertical ranges that Xconﬁgurator suggests for your monitor are also displayed on this screen.

If you decide that the values you have selected are incorrect, youcan click the Restore original values button to return to the suggested settings.

Click Next when you have ﬁnished conﬁguring your monitor.

3.27.2. Custom Conﬁguration

Choose the correct color depth and resolution for your X conﬁguration. Click Test Setting to try out this conﬁguration. If you do not like what you see during the test, click No to choose another resolution.

Note

If you need to exit out of the X test, use the [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Backspace] key combination. Also note that this will not work in some test cases.

We recommend that you test your conﬁguration, to make sure the resolution and color settings are usable.

If you installed both GNOME and KDE, you can choose which one to use as your default desktop environment. If you installed one or the other, it will only show GNOME or KDE as the desktop default.

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 53

You can also choose whether you want to boot your system into a text or graphical environment once Red Hat Linux Advanced Server is installed. Unless you have special needs, booting into a graphical environment (similar to a Windows environment) is recommended. If you choose to boot into a text environment, you will be presented with a command prompt (similar to a DOS environment).

Figure 3-26. X Customization

3.28. Installation Complete

Congratulations! Your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 installation is now complete! The installation program will prompt you to prepare your system for reboot. Remember to remove

any diskette in the diskette drive or CD in the CD-ROM drive.

Refer to Section 3.29 for instructions on how to boot your system and perform the post-installation setup.

3.29. Booting Your Machine and Post-Installation Setup

This section describes how to boot your Itanium into Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. After you reboot your system at the end of the installation program, an entry named Red Hat Linux

Advanced Server is added to the EFI Boot Manager list and changed to the default. Select it and press [Enter] to boot into Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. You can also wait for it to timeout and boot the default entry.

Tip

Refer to /usr/share/doc/elilo- Boot Manager entries.



version/efibootmgr-doc for details on how to modify the EFI

54 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

3.29.1. Specifying the Kernel

If you need to boot a kernel that is not the default, select EFI Shell from the EFI Boot Manager list. If you just type elilo, the default kernel listed in the /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/elilo.conf con-

ﬁguration ﬁle is loaded. (The ﬁrst kernel listed in the ﬁle is the default.) If you want to load a different kernel, type the label name of the kernel from the ﬁle

/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/elilo.conf after elilo. For example, to load the kernel named linux-up for the uni-processor kernel:



Shell

elilo linux-up

If you do not know the names of the installed kernels, you can view the

/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/elilo.conf ﬁle in EFI with the following instructions:

1. At the Shell

prompt, change devices to the system partition (mounted as /boot/efi in



Linux). For example, if fs0 is the system boot partition, type fs0: at the EFI Shell prompt.

2. Type ls at the fs0:\> to make sure you are in the correct partition.

3. Change to the directory that contains the elilo conﬁguration ﬁle:



Shell

cd EFI/redhat

4. Then type:

Shelltype elilo.conf

This command displays the contents of the conﬁguration ﬁle. Each stanza contains a line beginning with label followed by a label name for that kernel. The label name is what you type after elilo to boot the different kernels.

3.29.2. Post-Installation Boot Loader Options

In addition to specifying a kernel to load, you can also enter other boot options such as single for single user mode or mem=1024M to force Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to see 1024 MB of memory. To pass options to the boot loader, enter the following at the EFI Shell prompt (replace linux with the label name of the kernel you want to boot and option with the boot options you want to pass to the kernel):

elilo linux option

Shell



3.29.3. Using a Startup Script

It is recommended that you use the preconﬁgured EFI Boot Manager entry to boot Red Hat Linux Advanced Server automatically. However, if you require additional commands to be executed before starting the ELILO boot loader, you can create a startup script named startup.nsh. The last command should be elilo to boot into Linux.

The startup.nsh script should be in the /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/ partition (/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/startup.nsh) and contain the following text:

echo -off

your set of commands

elilo

If you want to pass options to the boot loader (see Section 3.29.2) add them after elilo. You can either create this ﬁle after booting into Red Hat Linux Advanced Server or use the editor built

into the EFI shell. To use the EFI shell, at the Shell> prompt, change devices to the system partition

Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 55

(mounted as /boot/efi in Linux) and change to the EFI/redhat directory. For example, if fs0 is the system boot partition, type fs0: at the EFI Shell prompt. Type ls to make sure you are in the correct partition, and then type cd EFI/redhat. Type edit startup.nsh. Type the contents of the ﬁle and save it.

The next time the system boots, EFI will detect the startup.nsh ﬁle and use it to boot the system. To stop EFI from loading the ﬁle, type [Ctrl]-[c]. This will abort the process, and you will return to the EFI shell prompt.

56 Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Appendix A.

Additional Resources about Itanium and Linux

Other reference materials, related to running Red Hat Linux on an Itanium system, are available on the Web. A few of the available resources are as follows:

• http://www.linuxia64.org — The Ofﬁcial Home Page of the Itanium Linux Project

• http://www.intel.com/products/server/processors/server/itanium/ — The Intel website on the Ita-

nium Processor

• http://cedar.intel.com/software/idap/media/pdf/EFIShell.pdf — Navigating through the EFI Shell

Primer by Intel (in PDF format)

• http://www.itanium.com/eBusiness/products/itanium/ — The Intel website on the Itanium proces-

sor family

• http://www.hp.com/products1/itanium/index.html — HP Itanium-based platforms website

58 Appendix A. Additional Resources about Itanium and Linux

Appendix B.

Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat

Linux Advanced Server

This appendix discusses some common installation problems and their solutions.

B.1. You are Unable to Boot Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

B.1.1. Is Your System Displaying Signal 11 Errors?

If you receive a fatal signal 11 error during your installation, it is probably due to a hardware error in memory on your system’s bus. A hardware error in memory can be caused by problems in executables or with the system’s hardware. Like other operating systems, Red Hat Linux Advanced ServerRed Hat Linux Advanced Server places its own demands on your system’s hardware. Some of this hardware may not be able to meet those demands, even if they work properly under another OS.

Check to see if you have the latest installation and supplemental boot diskettes from Red Hat. Review the online errata to see if newer versions are available. If the latest images still fail, it may be due to a problem with your hardware. Commonly, these errors are in your memory or CPU-cache. A possible solution for this error is turning off the CPU-cache in the BIOS. You could also try to swap your memory around in the motherboard slots to see if the problem is either slot or memory related.

For more information concerning signal 11 errors, refer to:

http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/

B.2. Trouble Beginning the Installation

B.2.1. Problems with Booting into the Graphical Installation

The Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation program uses frame buffers by default. However, there are some video cards that will not work with this setting. The end result will be a problem booting into the graphical installation program.

The installation program will ﬁrst try to run in frame buffer mode. If that fails, it will try to run in a lower resolution mode. If that still fails, the installation program will run in text mode.

Users who have video cards that will not run at 800 x 600 resolution should type lowres at the

boot: prompt to run the installation program in 640 x 480 resolution.

If this still does not work, you can run the installation program without frame buffers by typing nofb at the boot: prompt.

B.2.2. Is Your Mouse Not Detected?

If the Mouse Not Detected screen (see Figure B-1) appears, then the installation program was not able to identify your mouse correctly.

60 Appendix B. Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

Figure B-1. Mouse Not Detected

You can choose to continue with the GUI installation or use the text mode installation, which does not require using a mouse. If you choose to continue with the GUI installation, you will need to provide the installation program with your mouse conﬁguration information (see Section 3.12).

B.3. Trouble During the Installation

B.3.1. Partition Creation Problems

If you are having trouble creating a partition (for example, a root (/) partition), make sure you are setting its partition type to Linux Native.

B.3.2. Other Partitioning Problems

If you are using Disk Druid to create partitions, but cannot move to the next screen, you probably have not created all the partitions necessary for Disk Druid’s dependencies to be satisﬁed.

You must have the following partitions as a bare minimum:

• A /boot/efi partition of type vfat

• A / (root) partition of type Linux native



• A

swappartition of type Linux swap

Tip

When deﬁning a partition’s type as Linux swap, you do not have to assign it a mount point. Disk Druid automatically assigns the mount point for you.

Appendix B. Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 61

B.3.3. Are You Seeing Python Errors?

During some upgrades or installations of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, the installation program (also known as Anaconda) may fail with a Python or traceback error. This error may occur after the selection of individual packages or while trying to save the upgrade log in /tmp. The error may look similar to:

Traceback (innermost last):

File "/var/tmp/anaconda-7.1//usr/lib/anaconda/iw/progress_gui.py",

line 20, in run

rc = self.todo.doInstall ()

File "/var/tmp/anaconda-7.1//usr/lib/anaconda/todo.py", line 1468, in

doInstall

self.fstab.savePartitions ()

File "fstab.py", line 221, in savePartitions

sys.exit(0)

SystemExit: 0

Local variables in innermost frame: self:

fstab.GuiFstab instance at 8446fe0



sys:module ’sys’ (built-in)

ToDo object: (itodo ToDo p1 (dp2 S’method’ p3 (iimage CdromInstallMethod p4 (dp5 S’progressWindow’ p6





failed



This error occurs in some systems where links to /tmp are symbolic to other locations or have been changed since creation. These symbolic or changed links are invalid during the installation process, so the installation program cannot write information and fails.

If you experience such an error, ﬁrst try to download any available errata for Anaconda. Errata can be found at:



http://www.redhat.com/support/errata

You can also search for bug reports related to this problem. To search Red Hat’s bug tracking system, go to:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla

Finally, if you are still facing problems related to this error, register your product and contact our support team. To register your product, go to:

http://www.redhat.com/apps/activate

62 Appendix B. Troubleshooting Your Installation of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

B.4. Problems After Installation

B.4.1. Problems with Server Installations and X

If you performed a server installation and you are having trouble getting X to start, you may not have installed the X Window System during your installation.

If you want the X Window System, you can perform an upgrade to install X. During the upgrade, select the X Window System packages, and choose GNOME, KDE, or both.

B.4.2. Problems When You Try to Log In

If you did not create a user account during the installation you will need to log in as root and use the password you assigned to root.

If you cannot remember your user account password, you must become root. To become root, type su

- and enter your root password when prompted. Then, type passwd

to enter a new password for the speciﬁed user account. To check your hardware for compatibility, the Hardware Compatibility List can be found at:

http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/

B.4.3. Your Printer Will Not Work Under X

If you are not sure how to set up your printer or are having trouble getting it to work properly, try using the graphical printconf program. Log in as root, open a terminal window, and type printconf-gui.

username



. This allows you



B.4.4. Problems with Sound Conﬁguration

If you do not have sound after your installation, you may need to run the sound conﬁguration utility. As root, type sndconfig in a terminal window.

Note

sndconfig must be run in runlevel 3. More information about runlevels can be found in the Ofﬁcial

Red Hat Linux Reference Guide, in chapter Boot Process, Init, and Shutdown.

If the sndconﬁg application does not help, you may need to select the Enable sound server

startup option under the Multimedia=>Sound in the GNOME Control Center.

To do this, click on Panel=>Programs=>Settings=>GNOME Control Center to launch the GNOME Control Center. In the GNOME Control Center, select the Sound submenu of the Multimedia menu. On the right, a General sound menu will appear. Select Enable sound

server startup and then click OK.

Appendix C.

An Introduction to Disk Partitions

Disk partitions are a standard part of the personal computer landscape and have been for quite some time. However, with many people purchasing computers featuring pre-installed operating systems, relatively few people understand how partitions work. This chapter attempts to explain the reasons for and use of disk partitions so your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation will be as simple and painless as possible.

If you are reasonably comfortable with disk partitions, you could skip ahead to Section C.1.4, for more information on the process of freeing up disk space to prepare for a Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation. This section also discusses the partition naming scheme used by Linux systems, sharing disk space with other operating systems, and related topics.

C.1. Hard Disk Basic Concepts

Hard disks perform a very simple function — they store data and reliably retrieve it on command. When discussing issues such as disk partitioning, it is important to know a bit about the underlying

hardware. Unfortunately, it is easy to become bogged down in details. Therefore, we will use a simpliﬁed diagram of a disk drive to help explain what is really happening when a disk drive is partitioned. Figure C-1, shows a brand-new, unused disk drive.

Figure C-1. An Unused Disk Drive

Not much to look at, is it? But if we are talking about disk drives on a basic level, it will do. Say that we would like to store some data on this drive. As things stand now, it will not work. There is something we need to do ﬁrst. ..

C.1.1. It is Not What You Write, it is How You Write It

Experienced computer users probably got this one on the ﬁrst try. We need to format the drive. Formatting (usually known as "making a ﬁle system") writes information to the drive, creating order out of the empty space in an unformatted drive.

64 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

Figure C-2. Disk Drive with a File System

As Figure C-2, implies, the order imposed by a ﬁle system involves some trade-offs:

• A small percentage of the drive’s available space is used to store ﬁle system-related data and can be

considered as overhead.

• A ﬁle system splits the remaining space into small, consistently-sized segments. For Linux, these

segments are known as blocks.

Given that ﬁle systems make things like directories and ﬁles possible, these tradeoffs are usually seen as a small price to pay.

It is also worth noting that there is no single, universal ﬁle system. As Figure C-3, shows, a disk drive may have one of many different ﬁle systems written on it. As you might guess, different ﬁle systems tend to be incompatible; that is, an operating system that supports one ﬁle system (or a handful of related ﬁle system types) may not support another. This last statement is not a hard-and-fast rule, however. For example, Red Hat Linux Advanced Server supports a wide variety of ﬁle systems (including many commonly used by other operating systems), making data interchange between different ﬁle systems easy.

1. Blocks really are consistently sized, unlike our illustrations. Keep in mind, also, that an average disk drive

contains thousands of blocks. But for the purposes of this discussion, please ignore these minor discrepancies.

Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 65

Figure C-3. Disk Drive with a Different File System

Of course, writing a ﬁle system to disk is only the beginning. The goal of this process is to actually store and retrieve data. Let us take a look at our drive after some ﬁles have been written to it.

Figure C-4. Disk Drive with Data Written to It

As Figure C-4, shows, 14 of the previously-empty blocks are now holding data. However, by simply looking at this picture, we cannot determine exactly how many ﬁles reside on this drive. There may be as few as one or as many as 14 ﬁles, as all ﬁles use at least one block and some ﬁles use multiple blocks. Another important point to note is that the used blocks do not have to form a contiguous region; used and unused blocks may be interspersed. This is known as fragmentation. Fragmentation can play a part when attempting to resize an existing partition.

As with most computer-related technologies, disk drives changed over time after their introduction. In particular, they got bigger. Not larger in physical size, but bigger in their capacity to store information. And, this additional capacity drove a fundamental change in the way disk drives were used.

C.1.2. Partitions: Turning One Drive Into Many

As disk drive capacities soared, some people began to wonder if having all of that formatted space

66 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

in one big chunk was such a great idea. This line of thinking was driven by several issues, some philosophical, some technical. On the philosophical side, above a certain size, it seemed that the additional space provided by a larger drive created more clutter. On the technical side, some ﬁle systems were never designed to support anything above a certain capacity. Or the ﬁle systems could support larger drives with a greater capacity, but the overhead imposed by the ﬁle system to track ﬁles became excessive.

The solution to this problem was to divide disks into partitions. Each partition can be accessed as if it was a separate disk. This is done through the addition of a partition table.

Note

While the diagrams in this chapter show the partition table as being separate from the actual disk drive, this is not entirely accurate. In reality, the partition table is stored at the very start of the disk, before any ﬁle system or user data. But for clarity, we will keep it separate in our diagrams.

Figure C-5. Disk Drive with Partition Table

As Figure C-5, shows, the partition table is divided into four sections. Each section can hold the information necessary to deﬁne a single partition, meaning that the partition table can deﬁne no more than four partitions.

Each partition table entry contains several important characteristics of the partition:

• The points on the disk where the partition starts and ends

• Whether the partition is "active"

• The partition’s type

Let us take a closer look at each of these characteristics. The starting and ending points actually deﬁne the partition’s size and location on the disk. The "active" ﬂag is used by some operating systems’ boot loaders. In other words, the operating system in the partition that is marked "active" will be booted.

The partition’s type can be a bit confusing. The type is a number that identiﬁes the partition’s anticipated usage. If that statement sounds a bit vague, that is because the meaning of the partition type is a bit vague. Some operating systems use the partition type to denote a speciﬁc ﬁle system type, to

Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 67

ﬂag the partition as being associated with a particular operating system, to indicate that the partition contains a bootable operating system, or some combination of the three.

Table C-1, contains a listing of some popular (and obscure) partition types, along with their numeric values.

Partition Type Value Partition Type Value

Empty 00 Novell Netware 386 65 DOS 12-bit FAT 01 PIC/IX 75 XENIX root 02 Old MINIX 80 XENIX usr 03 Linux/MINUX 81 DOS 16-bit=32M 04 Linux swap 82 Extended 05 Linux native 83 DOS 16-bit=32 06 Linux extended 85 OS/2 HPFS 07 Amoeba 93 AIX 08 Amoeba BBT 94 AIX bootable 09 BSD/386 a5 OS/2 Boot Manager 0a OpenBSD a6 Win95 FAT32 0b NEXTSTEP a7 Win95 FAT32 (LBA) 0c BSDI fs b7 Win95 FAT16 (LBA) 0e BSDI swap b8 Win95 Extended (LBA) 0f Syrinx c7 Venix 80286 40 CP/M db Novell 51 DOS access e1 Microport 52 DOS R/O e3 GNU HURD 63 DOS secondary f2 Novell Netware 286 64 BBT ff

Table C-1. Partition Types

By this point, you might be wondering how all this additional complexity is normally used. See Figure C-6, for an example.

68 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

Figure C-6. >Disk Drive With Single Partition

In many cases, there is only a single partition spanning the entire disk, essentially duplicating the method used before partitions. The partition table has only one entry used, and it points to the start of the partition.

We have labeled this partition as being of the "DOS" type. Although it is only one of several possible partition types listed in Table C-1, it is adequate for the purposes of this discussion. This is a typical partition layout for most newly purchased computers with a consumer version of Microsoft Windows™ preinstalled.

C.1.3. Partitions within Partitions — An Overview of Extended Partitions

Of course, over time it became obvious that four partitions would not be enough. As disk drives continued to grow, it became more and more likely that a person could conﬁgure four reasonablysized partitions and still have disk space left over. There needed to be some way of creating more partitions.

Enter the extended partition. As you may have noticed in Table C-1, there is an "Extended" partition type. It is this partition type that is at the heart of extended partitions.

When a partition is created and its type is set to "Extended," an extended partition table is created. In essence, the extended partition is like a disk drive in its own right — it has a partition table that points to one or more partitions (now called logical partitions, as opposed to the four primary partitions) contained entirely within the extended partition itself. Figure C-7, shows a disk drive with one primary partition and one extended partition containing two logical partitions (along with some unpartitioned free space).

Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 69

Figure C-7. Disk Drive With Extended Partition

As this ﬁgure implies, there is a difference between primary and logical partitions — there can only be four primary partitions, but there is no ﬁxed limit to the number of logical partitions that can exist. (However, in reality, it is probably not a good idea to try to deﬁne and use more than 12 logical partitions on a single disk drive.)

Now that we have discussed partitions in general, let us see how to use this knowledge to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

C.1.4. Making Room For Red Hat Linux Advanced Server

There are three possible scenarios you may face when attempting to repartition your hard disk:

• Unpartitioned free space is available

• An unused partition is available

• Free space in an actively used partition is available

Let us look at each scenario in order.

Note

Please keep in mind that the following illustrations are simpliﬁed in the interest of clarity and do not reﬂect the exact par tition layout that you will encounter when actually installing Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.

C.1.4.1. Using Unpartitioned Free Space

In this situation, the partitions already deﬁned do not span the entire hard disk, leaving unallocated space that is not part of any deﬁned partition. Figure C-8, shows what this might look like.

70 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

Figure C-8. Disk Drive with Unpartitioned Free Space

If you think about it, an unused hard disk also falls into this category. The only difference is that all the space is not part of any deﬁned partition.

In any case, you can simply create the necessary partitions from the unused space. Unfortunately, this scenario, although very simple, is not very likely (unless you have just purchased a new disk just for Red Hat Linux Advanced Server). Most pre-installed operating systems are conﬁgured to take up all available space on a disk drive (see Section C.1.4.3).

Next, we will discuss a slightly more common situation.

C.1.4.2. Using Space from an Unused Partition

In this case, maybe you have one or more partitions that you do not use any longer. Perhaps you have dabbled with another operating system in the past, and the partition(s) you dedicated to it never seem to be used anymore. Figure C-9, illustrates such a situation.

Figure C-9. Disk Drive With an Unused Partition

If you ﬁnd yourself in this situation, you can use the space allocated to the unused partition. You will ﬁrst need to delete the partition, and then create the appropriate Linux partition(s) in its place. You can either delete the partition using the DOS fdisk command, or you will be given the opportunity to do so during a custom installation.

C.1.4.3. Using Free Space from an Active Partition

This is the most common situation. It is also, unfortunately, the hardest to handle. The main problem is that, even if you have enough free space, it is presently allocated to a partition that is already in use. If you purchased a computer with pre-installed software, the hard disk most likely has one massive partition holding the operating system and data.

Aside from adding a new hard drive to your system, you have two choices:

Destructive Repartitioning

Basically, you delete the single large partition and create several smaller ones. As you might imagine, any data you had in the original partition is destroyed. This means that making a com-

Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 71

plete backup is necessary. For your own sake, make two backups, use veriﬁcation (if available in your backup software), and try to read data from your backup before you delete the partition.

Caution

If there was an operating system of some type installed on that partition, it will need to be reinstalled as well. Be aware that some computers sold with pre-installed operating systems may not include the CD-ROM media to reinstall the original operating system. The best time to notice if this applies to your system is before you destroy your original partition and its operating system installation.

After creating a smaller partition for your existing software, you can reinstall any software, restore your data, and continue your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server installation. Figure C-10 shows this being done.

Figure C-10. Disk Drive Being Destructively Repartitioned

Caution

As Figure C-10, shows, any data present in the original partition will be lost without proper backup!

Non-Destructive Repartitioning

Here, you run a program that does the seemingly impossible: it makes a big partition smaller without losing any of the ﬁles stored in that partition. Many people have found this method to be reliable and trouble-free. What software should you use to perform this feat? There are several disk management software products on the market. You will have to do some research to ﬁnd the one that is best for your situation.

While the process of non-destructive repartitioning is rather straightforward, there are a number of steps involved:

• Compress existing data

• Resize the existing partition

• Create new partition(s)

Next we will look at each step in a bit more detail.

C.1.4.3.1. Compress existing data

As Figure C-11, shows, the ﬁrst step is to compress the data in your existing partition. The reason for doing this is to rearrange the data such that it maximizes the available free space at the "end" of the partition.

72 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

Figure C-11. Disk Drive Being Compressed

This step is crucial. Without it, the location of your data could prevent the partition from being resized to the extent desired. Note also that, for one reason or another, some data cannot be moved. If this is the case (and it severely restricts the size of your new partition(s)), you may be forced to destructively repartition your disk.

C.1.4.3.2. Resize the existing partition

Figure C-12, shows the actual resizing process. While the actual result of the resizing operation varies depending on the software used, in most cases the newly freed space is used to create an unformatted partition of the same type as the original partition.

Figure C-12. Disk Drive with Partition Resized

It is important to understand what the resizing software you use does with the newly freed space, so that you can take the appropriate steps. In the case we have illustrated, it would be best to simply delete the new DOS partition and create the appropriate Linux partition(s).

C.1.4.3.3. Create new partition(s)

As the previous step implied, it may or may not be necessary to create new partitions. However, unless your resizing software is Linux-aware, it is likely you will need to delete the partition that was created during the resizing process. Figure C-13, shows this being done.

Figure C-13. Disk Drive with Final Partition Conﬁguration

Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 73

Note

The following information is speciﬁc to Intel-based computers only.

As a convenience to Red Hat Linux Advanced Server users, the DOS fips utility is included on the Red Hat Linux/Itanium CD 1 in the dosutils directory. This is a freely available program that can resize FAT (File Allocation Table) partitions.

Warning

Many people have successfully used fips to resize their hard drive partitions. However, because of the nature of the operations carried out by fips and the wide variety of hardware and software conﬁgurations under which it must run, Red Hat cannot guarantee that fips will work properly on your system. Therefore, no installation support is available for fips. Use it at your own risk.

That said, if you decide to repartition your hard drive with fips, it is vital that you do two things:

• Perform a backup — Make two copies of all the important data on your computer. These copies

should be to removable media (such as tape or diskettes), and you should make sure they are readable before proceeding.

• Read the documentation — Completely read the fips documentation, located in the

dosutils/fipsdocs subdirectory on Red Hat Linux/Itanium CD 1.

Should you decide to use fips, be aware that after fips runs you will be left with two partitions: the one you resized, and the one fips created out of the newly freed space. If your goal is to use that space to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, you should delete the newly created partition, either by using fdisk under your current operating system or while setting up partitions during a custom installation.

C.1.5. Partition Naming Scheme

Linux refers to disk partitions using a combination of letters and numbers which may be confusing, particularly if you are used to the "C drive" way of referring to hard disks and their partitions. In the DOS/Windows world, partitions are named using the following method:

• Each partition’s type is checked to determine if it can be read by DOS/Windows.

• If the partition’s type is compatible, it is assigned a "drive letter." The drive letters start with a "C"

and move on to the following letters, depending on the number of partitions to be labeled.

• The drive letter can then be used to refer to that partition as well as the ﬁle system contained on that

partition.

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server uses a naming scheme that is more ﬂexible and conveys more information than the approach used by other operating systems. The naming scheme is ﬁle-based, with ﬁlenames in the form:

/dev/xxy N

Here is how to decipher the partition naming scheme:

74 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

/dev/

This string is the name of the directory in which all device ﬁles reside. Since partitions reside on hard disks, and hard disks are devices, the ﬁles representing all possible partitions reside in

/dev/.

The ﬁrst two letters of the partition name indicate the type of device on which the partition resides. You will normally see either hd (for IDE disks) or sd (for SCSI disks).

This letter indicates which device the partition is on. For example, /dev/hda (the ﬁrst IDE hard disk) or /dev/sdb (the second SCSI disk).

The ﬁnal number denotes the partition. The ﬁrst four (primary or extended) partitions are numbered 1 through 4. Logical partitions start at 5. So, for example, /dev/hda3 is the third primary or extended partition on the ﬁrst IDE hard disk, and /dev/sdb6 is the second logical partition on the second SCSI hard disk.

Note

There is no part of this naming convention that is based on partition type; unlike DOS/Windows, all partitions can be identiﬁed under Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. Of course, this does not mean that Red Hat Linux can access data on every type of partition, but in many cases it is possible to access data on a partition dedicated to another operating system.

Keep this information in mind; it will make things easier to understand when you are setting up the partitions Red Hat Linux Advanced Server requires.

C.1.6. Disk Partitions and Other Operating Systems

If your Red Hat Linux Advanced Server partitions will be sharing a hard disk with partitions used by other operating systems, most of the time you will have no problems. However, there are certain combinations of Linux and other operating systems that require extra care. Information on creating disk partitions compatible with other operating systems is available in several HOWTOs and MiniHOWTOs, available on the Red Hat Linux Advanced Server Documentation CD in the HOWTO and

HOWTO/mini directories. In particular, the Mini-HOWTOs whose names start with Linux+ are quite

helpful.

C.1.7. Disk Partitions and Mount Points

One area that many people new to Linux ﬁnd confusing is the matter of how partitions are used and accessed by the Linux operating system. In DOS/Windows, it is relatively simple: Each partition gets a "drive letter." You then use the correct drive letter to refer to ﬁles and directories on its corresponding partition.

This is entirely different from how Linux deals with partitions and, for that matter, with disk storage in general. The main difference is that each partition is used to form part of the storage necessary to support a single set of ﬁles and directories. This is done by associating a partition with a directory through a process known as mounting. Mounting a partition makes its storage available starting at the speciﬁed directory (known as a mount point).

Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 75

For example, if partition /dev/hda5 were mounted on /usr, that would mean that all ﬁles and directories under /usr would physically reside on /dev/hda5. So the ﬁle

/usr/share/doc/FAQ/txt/Linux-FAQ would be stored on /dev/hda5, while the ﬁle /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions/Gnome would not.

Continuing our example, it is also possible that one or more directories below /usr would be mount points for other partitions. For instance, a partition (say, /dev/hda7) could be mounted on

/usr/local, meaning that /usr/local/man/whatis would then reside on /dev/hda7 rather

than /dev/hda5.

C.1.8. How Many Partitions?

At this point in the process of preparing to install Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, you will need to give some consideration to the number and size of the partitions to be used by your new operating system. The question of "how many partitions" continues to spark debate within the Linux community and, without any end to the debate in sight, it is safe to say that there are probably as many partition layouts as there are people debating the issue.

Keeping this in mind, we recommend that, unless you have a reason for doing otherwise, you should at least create the following partitions:

• A swap partition — Swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other words, data is

written to swap when there is not RAM to hold the data your system is processing. You must create a swap partition to correctly use Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. The minimum size of your swap partition should be equal to twice the amount of your computer’s RAM or 32 MB, whichever is larger.

•

A /boot/efi partition — The partition mounted on /boot/efi contains the operating system kernel (which allows your system to boot Red Hat Linux), the conﬁguration ﬁles for ELILO, and a few other ﬁles used during the bootstrap process. This partition must be formatted as type DOS.

• A root partition (/) — The root partition is where / (the root directory) resides. In this partitioning

layout, all ﬁles (except those stored in /boot/efi) reside on the root partition. Because of this, it is in your best interest to maximize the size of your root partition. Obviously, the more space you can give the root partition, the better.

Speciﬁc recommendations concerning the proper size for various Red Hat Linux Advanced Server partitions can be found in Section 1.4.

76 Appendix C. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

Index

Symbols

/boot/eﬁ, 35 /root/install.log

install log ﬁle location, 50

adding partitions, 36

ﬁle system type, 37

ATAPI CD-ROM

unrecognized, problems with, 23

automatic partitioning, 31, 32

boot diskette

creating from boot image ﬁle, 17 boot.img, 17 booting

from a CD-ROM, 16

installation program

from a CD-ROM, 17 from an LS-120 diskette, 17

canceling the installation, 23 CD-ROM

ATAPI, 23

unrecognized, problems with, 23

IDE, 23

unrecognized, problems with, 23 installation from, 23 other, 23 SCSI, 23

class

installation, 31

clock, 43 conﬁguration

clock, 43 network, 39 time, 43 time zone, 43

consoles, virtual, 19 conventions

document, v

Custom

disk space, 11

deleting partitions, 38

dependencies

installing packages, 48

Disk Druid

adding partitions, 36

ﬁle system type, 37

buttons, 34

deleting partitions, 38

editing partitions, 37

partitions, 33

disk partitioning, 31

disk space, 10

disk space requirements, 11, 15

advanced server, 12

custom, 12

documentation

other manuals, 9

editing partitions, 37

EFI

system partition, 16

EFI Shell, 15

ELILO

post-installation boot setup, 53

extended partitions, 68

feedback

contact information for this manual, viii

ﬁle system

formats, overview of, 63

ﬁle system types, 37

ﬁps partitioning utility, 73

ﬁrewall conﬁguration, 40

customize incoming services, 41

customize trusted devices, 41

security levels

high, 40

medium, 41

no ﬁrewall, 41

FTP

installation, 25

hard disk

basic concepts, 63 extended partitions, 68 ﬁle system formats, 63 partition introduction, 65 partition types, 67 partitioning of, 63

hardware

compatibility, 10

hostname conﬁguration, 39 how to use this manual, vii HTTP

installation, 26

ia64

(See Itanium)

IDE CD-ROM

unrecognized, problems with, 23

install log ﬁle

/root/install.log, 50

installation

aborting, 23 advanced server, 12 CD-ROM, 23 choosing, 11 class, 31 custom, 12 disk space, 10 FTP, 25 getting Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, 9 GUI

CD-ROM, 19 HTTP, 26 Itanium overview, 15 keyboard navigation, 21 method

CD-ROM, 22

FTP, 22

HTTP, 22

NFS image, 22

selecting, 22 network, 24 NFS, 24 NFS server information, 25 no boxed set, 10 partitioning, 33 problems

IDE CD-ROM related, 23 program

graphical user interface, 19

text mode user interface, 20

virtual consoles, 19

registering your product, 10 starting, 23 text mode

online help, 22

installation class

choosing, 11 installation overview, 15 installing packages, 46 introduction, v

keyboard

conﬁguration, 28

navigating the installationprogram using, 21 keymap

selecting type of keyboard, 28

language

selecting, 27

support for multiple languages, 42

manuals, 9 mount points

partitions and, 74 mouse

conﬁguring, 29

not detected, 59

selecting, 29

network

conﬁguration, 39

installations

FTP, 25

HTTP, 26 network install, 24 NFS

installation, 24

online help

hiding, 27 text mode installation, 22

packages

groups, 46

selecting, 46 individual, 47 installing, 46 selecting, 46

parted, 38 partition

/boot/eﬁ, 75 extended, 68 root, 75 swap, 75

partitioning, 33

automatic, 31, 32 basic concepts, 63 creating new, 36

ﬁle system type, 37 destructive, 70 extended partitions, 68 how many partitions, 75 introduction to, 65 making room for partitions, 69 mount points and, 74 naming partitions, 73 non-destructive, 71 numbering partitions, 73 other operating systems, 74 recommended, 35 types of partitions, 67 using free space, 69 using in-use partition, 70 using unused partition, 70 with parted, 38

password

setting root, 44 user accounts, 46

post-installation setup, 53

RAM requirements, 15 recursion

(See recursion)

Red Hat FAQ, vii registering your product, 10 root / partition, 35 root partition

(See partition, root)

root password, 44

selecting

packages, 46

starting

installation, 23 startup.nsh, 54 steps

choosing an installation class, 11

disk space, 10

hardware compatibility, 10

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server components, 9 swap, 35

custom auto-partition, 13 swap partition

(See partition, swap) System Partition, 16

time zone

conﬁguration, 43 troubleshooting, 59

after the installation, 62

logging in, 62 printers and X, 62 server installations and X, 62 sound conﬁguration, 62

beginning the installation, 59

GUI installation method unavailable, 59 mouse not detected, 59

booting, 59

signal 11 error, 59

during the installation, 60

completing partitions, 60 creating partitions, 60 Python errors, 61

unresolved dependencies

full installation, 48 user accounts

creation, 46

setting up, 46 user interface, graphical

installation program, 19 user interface, text mode

installation program, 20

virtual consoles, 19

conﬁguration, 49

X Window System, 49 Xconﬁgurator

monitor setup, 51 video card setup, 49

Redhat LINUX ADVANCED SERVER User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual