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Linux System
Administration I:
Implementation
(Course Code QLX03)

Lab Set Up Guide

ERC 3.1

IBM Certified Course Material

Lab Set Up Guide

Trademarks
IBM® is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
The following are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United
States, or other countries, or both:
AIX® DB2® Domino™
Hummingbird® Lotus® OS/2®
PS/2® XT™
Windows and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both.
Intel and Pentium are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States, other countries,
or both.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other
countries.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.
Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

June 2004 Edition

The information contained in this document has not been submitted to any formal IBM test and is distributed on an “as is” basis without
any warranty either express or implied. The use of this information or the implementation of any of these techniques is a customer
responsibility and depends on the customer’s ability to evaluate and integrate them into the customer’s operational environment. While
each item may have been reviewed by IBM for accuracy in a specific situation, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results will
result elsewhere. Customers attempting to adapt these techniques to their own environments do so at their own risk.

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2001, 2004. All rights reserved.
This document may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written permission of IBM.
Note to U.S. Government Users — Documentation related to restricted rights — Use, duplication or disclosure is subject to restrictions
set forth in GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.
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TOC Contents
Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
PC Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Network Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Well-known Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Set Up Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Installing the Instructor System with Fedora Core 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Installing the Instructor System with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 ES . . . . . . . . . . 5
Installing the Instructor System with SuSE Professional 9.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Uploading and Exporting Fedora Core 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Uploading and Exporting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 ES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Uploading and Exporting SuSE Professional 9.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Contents iii

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

iv Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
V2.0
Lab Set Up Guide

TMK Trademarks
The reader should recognize that the following terms, which appear in the content of this
training document, are official trademarks of IBM or other companies:
IBM® is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
The following are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United
States, or other countries, or both:
AIX® DB2® Domino™
Hummingbird® Lotus® OS/2®
PS/2® XT™
Windows and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both.
Intel and Pentium are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States, other countries,
or both.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other
countries.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.
Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Trademarks v

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

vi Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
V2.0
Lab Set Up Guide

LSGp Purpose
This Lab Set Up Guide provides directions for installing, preparing, and verifying the lab
hardware and software in preparation for conducting a class of course LX03.
The Requirements sections of this document may also be used to determine the specific
hardware and software needed to conduct a class.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Purpose vii

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

viii Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
V2.0
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Uempty Requirements

Hardware Requirements

PC Requirements
Each pair of students, preferably each individual student, requires one Linux-compatible
PC. In addition to that, the instructor requires a similar PC, positioned so all the students
can view the display, preferably through a projector or an LCD panel on an overhead
projector.
Each PC requires at least the following:
• A Pentium-500 processor or compatible
• 256 MB of memory
• A hard disk of at least 8 GB
• A CD-ROM player
• A Fast ethernet adapter card, connected to the classroom network.
All the hardware should be compatible with Linux. To find out if your hardware is compatible
with Linux, visit http://www.redhat.com or http://www.suse.com.

Network Requirements
All computers in the classroom should be connected to each other using a Fast ethernet
LAN (100 Mbps). This LAN may or may not be connected to the outside world.
Regardless of whether the LAN is connected to the outside world, DHCP and DNS need to
be set up for the classroom. If DHCP or DNS is not configured, contact the instructor before
the class starts so that he or she can make provisions for this. Configuring DHCP and DNS
for a network is outside the scope of this Lab Setup Guide.

Well-known Problems
The following problems occur often, especially in IBM classrooms:
• Laptops: The course material does not allow for the use of PCMCIA network adapters,
which is the common adapter type on laptops. Therefore, it is not recommended to run
this class on laptops. If the class needs to run on laptops, contact the instructor
beforehand so that he/she is able to anticipate any problems.
• Token Ring: Token-Ring is not as well supported as Ethernet in Linux. If at all possible,
run this class under Ethernet. If that is not possible, then contact the instructor
beforehand so that he/she is able to anticipate any problems.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Requirements 1

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

Software Requirements
This course is compatible with Fedora Core 2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Entry Server
and SuSE Linux Professional 9. It is up to the country curriculum manager to decide
whether the class runs on Fedora, Red Hat or SuSE, or that students get the choice at the
start of the class.
The student systems should not be installed with Linux, since the students will do this as
part of the lab exercises.
If the class is to run on Fedora Core 2, then every student should be provided with one
Fedora Core 2 boot.iso CD. The ISO image for this CD can be found on the Fedora Core
2 CD 1, in the directory images/.
If the class is to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Entry Server, then every student
should be provided with one Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Entry Server boot.iso CD. The
ISO image for this CD can be found on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 CD 1, in the
directory images/.
If the class is to run on SuSE Professional 9.0, then every students should be provided
with one SuSE Professional 9.0 CD 1. The other four CDs are not required.
In addition to the media listed above, each student also needs a blank, unformatted
floppy disk for the backup exercises.
The instructor system should be installed with one of the distributions above, and
configured as a network install server. For this you are going to need one or more of the
following:
• A complete set of Fedora Core 2 CDs, or the Fedora Core 2 DVD
• A complete set of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Entry Server CDs
• A complete set of SuSE 9.0 Professional CDs
Note that it doesn’t matter whether this server is based on Fedora, Red Hat or SuSE, as
long as the server exports the correct CDs. So a Red Hat server can be used to support a
Fedora or SuSE class, and vice versa. However, since the instructor server is likely to be
used as a demonstration server as well, it is best to install this machine with the distribution
that is going to be used by most students in class.
See the set up instructions in this document for instructions on how to set up the instructor
server.

Notice
The instructor server has an identical setup to the kickstart server which can be used to
automatically setup the student systems for other Linux courses, such as LX07, LX25 and
LX26. Therefore, if such a kickstart server already exists, then this one can be used instead
of the instructor system.

2 Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

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Uempty Set Up Instructions

Student Systems
No lab setup is needed on the student systems. You might want to wipe the hard disk so no
traces of previous classes remain on the system.

Instructor System
The following steps are required for the instructor system:
1. Install the distribution of choice (Fedora Core 2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 ES or SuSE
Professional 9.0). You only need to install ONE distribution!
2. Upload the images for ALL distributions used in class, and make sure these are
available to student systems.
See below for the exact steps.

Installing the Instructor System with Fedora Core 2

__ 1. Insert the Fedora Core 2 CD 1 or DVD into the CD-drive.
__ 2. Turn on the computer.
__ 3. The system will boot from CD,1 and you will see a screen giving you different
installation options. We will use standard installation, so press Enter.
__ 4. If you burned the CDs yourself, or have another reason to doubt their integrity,
perform a media check by selecting OK. Note however that a media check of a
single CD might take up to 10 minutes, depending on the speed of your CD drive. If
there is no reason to doubt the integrity of the media, select Skip.
__ 5. Fedora will boot and start up the graphical install method. This might take several
minutes.
__ 6. At the “Welcome to Fedora Core” screen, click Next.
__ 7. Choose the language for the installation process and click Next.
__ 8. Choose your keyboard model and layout, and click Next.
__ 9. Choose your mouse type and port. If you have a two-button mouse, select “Emulate
3 Buttons” as well. Click Next.
__ 10. Choose your monitor type and resolution. Click Next.
__ 11. If a previous Linux installation has been detected on the system, you will be
prompted whether you want to upgrade this. We don’t need that, so select “Install
Fedora Core”. Click Next.
1 If the system does not boot from CD, then most likely the BIOS is not set up to boot from CD. Change the BIOS settings and try again.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Set Up Instructions 3

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

__ 12. Choose the "Custom" installation type. Click Next.

__ 13. Select "Manually Partition with Disk Druid". Click Next.
__ 14. The Disk Druid screen will now allow you to create your Linux partitions. Remove all
currently existing partitions and create three new partitions:
• One partition will be used as /boot partition. It's mount point should be "/boot",
the partition type should be "ext3"and the size of this partition should be 100
Megabytes.
• The second partition will be used as root partition. It's mount point should be
“/”, the partition type should be “ext3”and the size of this partition should at
least be 3500 Megabytes. It is best to fill this partition to maximum allowable
size.
• The third partition will be used as swap space. A swap space does not have a
mount point (it will show as "<Swap Partition>". The size should be equal to
the amount of memory you have, with a maximum of 256 Megabytes and the
partition type should be "swap".
Click Next. If a warning appears about swap being too low or /boot being too small,
ignore this.
__ 15. The next screen will allow you to set up your boot loader. Use the default which is
GRUB, the Grand Unified Bootloader. Accept all other defaults here as well. Click
Next.
__ 16. Configure the network adapter with the correct IP address, netmask and so forth, or
choose DHCP.
__ 17. Choose "No Firewall", then click Next.
__ 18. Use "English (USA)" as default language. Click Next.
__ 19. Now select your Time Zone, then click Next.
__ 20. Now set the root password to ibmlnx. Click Next.
__ 21. Now you will have to choose which packages to install. For the instructor system you
will need the following:
• X Window System
• GNOME Desktop Environment
• KDE (K Desktop Environment)
• Graphical Internet
• Text-based Internet
• Office/Productivity
• Sound and Video
• Graphics

4 Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

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Uempty • Server Configuration Tools

• Network Servers
• Development Tools
• Kernel Development
• Administration Tools
• System Tools
• Printing Support
Deselect all other packages. Click Next.
__ 22. Note the location of the log file: /tmp/install.log and click Next.
__ 23. Fedora will now format the filesystems and install Fedora Core 2. This may take
anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, depending on the number of packages to
install, and the speed of the computer.
When asked for, insert additional CDs in the drive and click OK.
__ 24. Your installation is now complete. Click Exit to reboot. Remove the CD from the
drive when the tray opens.
__ 25. When the system has rebooted, you will see an additional “Welcome” screen. Click
Forward.
__ 26. Create a user account for the instructor, with password ibmlnx. Click Forward.
__ 27. Check the date and time, and adjust them if necessary. Then click Forward.
__ 28. Do not register this system with the Red Hat Network. Click Forward.
__ 29. Do not install packages from additional CDs. Click Forward.
__ 30. Click Forward again.

Installing the Instructor System with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

3 ES
__ 1. Insert the Red Hat Linux 3 ES Binary CD 1 into the CD-drive.
__ 2. Turn on the computer.
__ 3. The system will boot from CD,2 and you will see a screen giving you different
installation options. We will use standard installation, so press Enter.
__ 4. If you burned the CDs yourself, or have another reason to doubt their integrity,
perform a media check by selecting OK. Note however that a media check of a
single CD might take up to 10 minutes, depending on the speed of your CD drive. If
there is no reason to doubt the integrity of the media, select Skip.
2 If the system does not boot from CD, then most likely the BIOS is not set up to boot from CD. Change the BIOS settings and try again.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Set Up Instructions 5

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

__ 5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux will boot and start up the graphical install method. This
might take several minutes.
__ 6. At the “Welcome to Red Hat Enterprise Linux” screen, click Next.
__ 7. Choose the language for the installation process and click Next.
__ 8. Choose your keyboard model and layout, and click Next.
__ 9. Choose your mouse type and port. If you have a two-button mouse, select “Emulate
3 Buttons” as well. Click Next.
__ 10. Select “Manually Partition with Disk Druid”. Click Next.
__ 11. The Disk Druid screen will now allow you to create your Linux partitions. Remove all
currently existing partitions and create three new partitions:
• One partition will be used as /boot partition. It's mount point should be “/boot”,
the partition type should be “ext3”and the size of this partition should be 100
Megabytes.
• The second partition will be used as root partition. It's mount point should be
“/”, the partition type should be “ext3”and the size of this partition should at
least be 3500 Megabytes. It is best to fill this partition to maximum allowable
size.
• The third partition will be used as swap space. A swap space does not have a
mount point (it will show as “<Swap Partition>”. The size should be equal to
the amount of memory you have, with a maximum of 256 Megabytes and the
partition type should be “swap”.
Click Next. If a warning appears about swap being too low or /boot being too small,
ignore this.
__ 12. The next screen will allow you to set up your boot loader. Use the default which is
GRUB, the Grand Unified Bootloader. Accept all other defaults here as well. Click
Next.
__ 13. Configure the network adapter with the correct IP address, netmask and so forth, or
choose DHCP.
__ 14. Choose “No Firewall”, then click Next.
__ 15. Use “English (USA)” as default language. Click Next.
__ 16. Now select your Time Zone, then click Next.
__ 17. In the next screen set the root password to ibmlnx. Click Next.
__ 18. Select “Customize the set of packages to be installed”. Click Next.
__ 19. Now you will have to choose which packages to install. For the instructor system you
will need the following:
• X Window System

6 Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

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without the prior written permission of IBM.
V2.0
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Uempty • GNOME Desktop Environment

• KDE Desktop Environment
• Graphical Internet
• Text-based Internet
• Office/Productivity
• Sound and Video
• Graphics
• Server Configuration Tools
• Network Servers
• Development Tools
• Kernel Development
• Administration Tools
• System Tools
• Printing Support
Deselect all other packages. Click Next.
__ 20. Note the location of the log file: /tmp/install.log and click Next.
__ 21. Red Hat will now format the filesystems and install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This
may take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, depending on the number of
packages to install, and the speed of the computer.
When asked for, insert additional CDs in the drive and click OK.
__ 22. Check whether your graphical adapter was detected correctly, then click Next.
__ 23. Check whether your monitor was detected correctly, then click Next.
__ 24. Choose a resolution and a color depth so that you have at least 1024x768@16 bit
color depth. Then click Next.
__ 25. Your installation is now complete. Click Exit to reboot. Remove the CD from the
drive when the tray opens.
__ 26. When the system has rebooted, you will see an additional “Welcome” screen. Click
Next.
__ 27. Agree to the license agreement. Click Next.
__ 28. Check the date and time, and adjust them if necessary. Then click Next.
__ 29. Create a user account “instructor”, with password “ibmlnx”. Click Next.
__ 30. If your system has a sound card which is detected correctly, then play a test sound.
Then click Next.
__ 31. Do not register this system with the Red Hat Network. Click Next.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Set Up Instructions 7

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without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

__ 32. Do not install packages from additional CDs. Click Next.

__ 33. Click Next again.

Installing the Instructor System with SuSE Professional 9.0

__ 1. Insert the SuSE 8.2 Professional Binary CD 1 into the CD-drive.
__ 2. Turn on the computer.
__ 3. The system will boot from CD,3 and you will see a screen giving you different
options. Choose Installation and press Enter.
__ 4. SuSE Linux will boot and start up the graphical install method. This may take several
minutes.
__ 5. Select your language and click Accept.
__ 6. If the machine has already been installed with Linux, you will get a warning on this.
Select “New Installation” if that is the case, and click OK.
__ 7. YaST will now show a screen with default installation settings. Check to see if the
settings are correct, and pay particular attention to the following:
• Partitioning should be done so that the root filesystem (/) is at least 3.9 GB.
• The Software groups to be installed are:
- Default system
- Graphical Base System
- KDE Desktop Environment
- GNOME system
- Help & Support Documentation
- Office Applications
- Network/Server
- C/C++ Compiler and Tools
- Kernel Development
Click Accept.
__ 8. You will now get a pop-up warning that the installation is about to start. Click Yes.
__ 9. SuSE Linux will now install. Depending on your hardware speed, this might take
over an hour.
Note that SuSE will reboot once during the installation, when it is nearly finished
installing all packages from CD 1. This is normal and the installation is configured so
3 If the system does not boot from CD, then most likely the BIOS is not set up to boot from CD. Change the BIOS settings and try again.

8 Linux System Administration I © Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004

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without the prior written permission of IBM.
V2.0
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Uempty that the installation process continues automatically after the reboot even though the
system boots from CD. You don’t have to touch the keyboard at all!
__ 10. Feed additional CDs when the install process asks for them.
__ 11. Set the root password to ibmlnx. Click Next.
__ 12. Check and adjust the network configuration, if necessary. Then click Next.
__ 13. Do not validate Internet access, so select “No, skip this test”. Click Next.
__ 14. Select “Stand-Alone Machine” and click Next.
__ 15. Add a user account “instructor”, using the password “ibmlnx”. Click Next.
__ 16. Read the release notes and click Next.
__ 17. Check and adjust the hardware configuration, if necessary. Then click Next.
__ 18. Click Finish. You are now finished with the installation.

Uploading and Exporting Fedora Core 2

__ 1. Log in as root with password ibmlnx and open a terminal window.
__ 2. Create a directory /export/fedora2 with the command mkdir -p /export/fedora2
__ 3. Check that you have enough free space by executing the command df .. You should
have at least 3.5 GB free.
__ 4. With each of the Fedora Core 2 CDs (or DVD) in the drive, perform the following
steps:
mount /mnt/cdrom
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/* /mnt/cdrom/.discinfo /export/fedora2
umount /mnt/cdrom
__ 5. Add the following line to /etc/exports:
/export/fedora2 *(ro,insecure)
__ 6. Make sure NFS is activated by executing the following series of commands:
chkconfig portmap on
chkconfig nfslock on
chkconfig nfs on

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2001, 2004 Set Up Instructions 9

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
Lab Set Up Guide

Uploading and Exporting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 ES

__ 1. Log in as root with password ibmlnx and open a terminal window.
__ 2. Create a directory /export/rhel3es with the command mkdir -p /export/rhel3es
__ 3. Check that you have enough free space by executing the command df .. You should
have at least 3.5 GB free.
__ 4. With each of the RHEL3ES CDs in the drive, perform the following steps:
mount /mnt/cdrom
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/* /mnt/cdrom/.discinfo /export/rhel3es
umount /mnt/cdrom
__ 5. Add the following line to /etc/exports:
/export/rhel3es *(ro,insecure)
__ 6. Make sure NFS is activated by executing the following series of commands:
chkconfig portmap on
chkconfig nfslock on
chkconfig nfs on

Uploading and Exporting SuSE Professional 9.0

__ 1. Log in as root with password ibmlnx and open a terminal window.
__ 2. Create a directory /export/suse90 with the command mkdir -p /export/suse90
__ 3. Check that you have enough free space by executing the command df .. You should
have at least 3.5 GB free.
__ 4. With each of the SuSE Professional 9.0 CDs (or DVD) in the drive, perform the
following steps:
mount /mnt/cdrom
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/* /export/suse90
umount /mnt/cdrom
__ 5. Add the following line to /etc/exports:
/export/suse90 *(ro,insecure)
__ 6. Make sure NFS is activated by executing the following series of commands:
chkconfig portmap on
chkconfig nfslock on
chkconfig nfs on

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