How-To Setup and configure a minimal FC2

[tburt11]

I don't need the Plesk panel, and some of the setups on the standard FC2 server did not fit my preference, so I decided to re-image with the minimal FC2 image and build from there.

I will try to post to this thread my experiences, and hopefully help someone else along the way.

First off.. This is a very catastrophic procedure. Don't try it on a server you are running websites on. You will need a couple of hours to build in the services that you need. But if you are an experienced administrator, this will give you an install that is closer to what you are expecting.

Read on for more info...

[tburt11]

You have full administrative control over your server...

EXCEPT..

You cannot set your partitions. :cry:

The folks at 1and1 give you a 512 MB root partition, and you are stuck with it. This is truly puny considering I have an 80 GB hard disk. I have loaded up a few packages, and updated the kernel and I have only about 100 MB left in the root, including /tmp

I asked support about modifying the partitions, and true, you can modify the partitions, except the root!

Bummer.

You can steal some cylinders from the home partition and create a mountable /tmp partition, which helps some. (see my post elsewhere) But I would really prefer the following partition scheme...

/boot 1024 MB
swap 2048 MB
/ Remainder of disk

This works extremely well for me in all my other installs

1and1 admin.... Please consider an alternative partition scheme!

[tburt11]

If you have data on your server, you must back it up. My account came with space on the FTP backup server. It was easy to copy my home folder and some configs that were easier to replace than re-author.

You may want to backup your home folders, www root and password files.

Then go to your control panel and select your image. It will wipe out your old install and give you a fresh clean image to work with...

I would suggest doing this for all users, even the Plesk version users, because someday, you may need to do this, and it is better to have done it than to learn while your server is down.. :p

You can login to your new minimal server with SSH and your original login and password.

[tburt11]

1) Change your root password.

2) Enable the serial port so you can login via the serial console if things go wrong. Note, this is enabled for the plesk version, but disabled in the minimal. Edit the /etc/inittab file and uncomment the line:

T0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L ttyS0 57600 vt100

You may need to reboot.

Log into your serial console and confirm that you can get a login prompt. This can be a lifesaver, if you ever need it.

3) Update your packages. Yum is preconfigured to retieve updates from the 1and1 servers. You might like to add an "exclude=kernel* to your /etc/yum.conf file. This will prevent your kernel from getting updated. You should only upgrade kernels, when you really want to. Then type:

yum update

It will work awhile and eventually ask if you want to apply the updates. It is pretty safe to say "yes".

[tburt11]

The minimal install, really is minimal!

It has postfix, and ssh and some basics, but that is about all. The good news is that it is pretty easy to add the services you want.

Yum will take care of any dependencies, so you can just yum away...

Here is a short list of the packages I installed. Your needs may be different:

http
mysql
php
php-mysql
ImageMagic
bind
bind-chroot
gcc
vsftpd
webalizer

For example.. Just type..

yum http

And Bob's your uncle!

[tburt11]

The root server comes with a network config of DHCP.

I don't know why, but I prefer a static network config.

Trouble is, the gateway address is odd. When I do a netstat -nr, I get:

Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
10.255.255.1 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0
169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
0.0.0.0 10.255.255.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

My guess here, is that my gateway is: 10.255.255.1, and there needs to be a static route to 10.255.255.1 that points to the eth0 interface. That much I get.

But what is the route to 169.254.0.0 for?

Does anybody know?

I am guessing that I need to set my gateway to 10.255.255.1 in the /etc/sysconfig/network file. And do I need to add a static route too?

What about the 169 route? Am I SOL if I leave it out?

Help would be appreciated!

[tburt11]

Redhat/Fedora has a policy of breaking their kernel sources before posting them. This used to be very common in the old Unix days, but is less common now. Dunno why they do it, but don't expect a stock Fedora kernel to compile from source.

You need to grab a Linux kernel from kernel.org.

Untar the sources.

Run
make mrproper
make menuconfig
make

I don't think the make install works. It hasn't for a long time. You may need to install the kernel by hand. Someday I will post that process.

Just FYI.. don't download the kernel source from 1and1 and expect it to compile. It doesn't..

[tburt11]

I called and asked support which boot loader was being used..

They said -- grub..

I looked at /boot/grub.conf, and it is configured for a kernel that does not even exist.

Lilo, I said.

Support wasn't much help.

One note on the lilo script... There are entries in the lilo.conf file that enable the serial console. This has to be done very early in the boot process, and lilo is the place it happens.

BUT....

I don't get the lilo boot prompt !! How can I boot an alternative kernel if I don't have a lilo prompt?

Can anybody help here? Does anybody see a boot prompt when viewing the serial console during a reboot?

Any suggestions on how to boot from an old kernel if the one I put as default turns out be be bad?

Your help is appreciated!!

[tburt11]

Here is the reply from Tech support:

This is possible if you do the following.

to be able to read kernel-boot-messages on the serial console, you have
to edit /etc/lilo.conf (or the appropiate boot-loader-config-file):

serial=0,57600n8
append="console=tty1 console=ttyS0,57600"

The double 'console'-Parameter is no typo, if you write only the
ttyS0-one, you cannot see anything on the monitor.

The only problem is that the default lilo version installed does not support the baud rate of our serial console
and so you would have to install a newer version of lilo before making this change.

This is about all the support we can offer you for this as we do not support system configuration or
modification.

----------------------------------------

So, you (we/I) will need to upgrade lilo before the boot prompt will appear.

I have been thinking about making an image of Fedora Core 4 and trying to install it on my root server. I will document the steps, when I get around to trying it.

[eWebtricity]

I've been fooling with installing CentOS4 as well, but ran short on time lately. There's another thread around here somewhere with some details