Linux for the Real World

Instructor – Shawn Powers

Linux installation:
Beginner: Network Installation
Intermediate: Local Mirror (setting up local mirrors so that our network installs go more
quickly)
Advanced: Kickstart Files (a way to automate the entire installation process (network install
or a local mirror (multiple installs or single)).

Getting the right images for network installations:

Search google for ‘’Ubuntu minimal cd” to find the link:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

Where we find and download the 32 bit and 64 bit minimal cd images for Ubuntu network
installation.

For CentOS:

Search for Centos netinstall and goto: https://wiki.centos.org/Download

Select the centos version we want to install for the 32 or 64 bit OS then pick a mirror where
we find a lot of files to download but the one we are looking for will look something like this
CentOS-6.2-i386-netinstall.iso (we will also find a minimal install image here which doesn’t
require internet connection for installation).

Booting up the iso on the virtual machine or manually burning it on a disc, we will get to the
install menu and after choosing our language, keyboard layout, preferred mirror
(us.archive.ubuntu.com), HTTP proxy etc it goes into downloading the Ubuntu files off the
internet. After installing the base system the installer asks us what software we want to
install like Basic Ubuntu server, open ssh server, LAMP server, virtual machine host, 2d 3d
creation and editing suite etc. After Configuring mysql server, installing grub boot loader to
the master boot record our installation will be complete.

For CentOS we burn the iso on a disc and then boot up our machine, there are a different
install methods here such as Local CD/DVD, Hard Disk, NFS directory and URL. URL is the
way to go if we want to set up a local mirror for installation of CentOS. Then we configure
TCP/IP where we enable ipv4 support or ipv6 support or both with the options of dynamic ip
configuration or manual configuration. Then we have URL setup where we have to enter the
url containing the installation image (http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6/os/i386/) or the
http proxy and the installer begins to retrieve the iso image file from the url after the
installer asks us to select our time zone and root password etc. after which the installation is
complete and we have to reboot the system.

In order to create the mirrors we are going to use the R-sync, so using the command line we
will set up the local mirror.

root@server:~# rsync –a rsync://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu /opt/mirror/ubuntu

archive.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu is the repository and /opt/mirror/Ubuntu is the local directory

for setting up the mirror
we can append --progress (rsyn -a --progress rsync://….) to view what goes on under the
hood while setting up local mirror.