Linux System

Configuration and
Administration
Power Linux Unleash the full potentials of Linux,
BIET, Davangere.
By
Chetan Kumar S
Wipro Technologies

Organization of the Talk

Installation of Linux
System Configuration

Network

configuration
Sharing with Windows
Printer Configuration
Some security configuration

Administrations
User

Management
User home pages
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Organization of Talk

System maintenance
Using

package manager

Cost Effective Linux solutions

Network

Booting
Single media Linux

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Where do you start

Is Your Hardware Compatible?

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

Do You Have Enough Disk Space?

You

have to decide, remove any virus if

required, use fips

Can You Install Using the CD-ROM?

Your

BIOS may need to be changed to boot

from your CD-ROM

Alternative Boot Methods

Boot

Diskette
Driver Diskettes
Network Device Drivers Diskette
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Gather more info

Use other OS to
know more
Personal

Desktop
Installations

Learning About
Your Hardware
with Windows

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The auspicious occasion

The Graphical Installation

Program User Interface
(text mode is also
available)

Choose the language,

keyboard and mouse

Choose upgrade or new

installation

Better to choose fresh

installation

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Installation of Linux
Choose personal desktop installation
For the first, but next time you bet on
Custom
After all Linux is knowing more

Choose partition using disk druid

Otherwise fdisk, in older
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Installation of Linux
Configure the partition:
Set the mount point
Set the SWAP size
Set the /boot space
Enable Ext3
formatting

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Installation of Linux
Choose the boot loader Grub
or Lilo

Configure the Network

Configuration
DHCP, Firewall, IP address etc..
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Installation of Linux
Choose the Root password

Accept the default package

selection or customize using the
Customize option
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Installation of Linux

Installation starts and

go on
inserting the required CD when asked
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Post Installation
Create a boot diskette

Configure your video card,

monitor and screen resolution
Reboot and start your Linux.!
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System Configuration

Kickstart Configurator
Kickstart Configurator allows you to create a
kickstart file using a graphical user interface, so
that you do not have to remember the correct
syntax of the file.
To use Kickstart Configurator, you must be
running the X Window System. To start Kickstart
Configurator, select the Main Menu Button (on
the Panel) => System Tools => Kickstart, or
type the command /usr/sbin/redhat-configkickstart.
As you are creating a kickstart file, you can select
File => Preview at any time to review your
current selections.
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System Configuration

Network configuration
Networking can always
be configured after
installation with the
Network Administration
Tool (redhat-confignetwork).
For each Ethernet card
on the system, click Add
Network Device and
select the network device
and network type of the
device. Select eth0 as the
network device for the
first Ethernet card, select
eth1 for the second
Ethernet card, and so on.

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Printer Configuration

Menu=> Printing=> New Printer => choose the printer

and printing tool (e.g. Post script printer)

Testing printer

Just do lpq to see printer status

Lpr <filename>

Should print the file

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Printer Configuration

Useful Websites
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/printer.html
General denitions of printers and descriptions of
printer types.
http://www.linuxprinting.org A database of documents
about printing, along with a database of
nearly 1000 printers compatible with Linux printing
facilities.
http://www.cups.org/ Documentation, FAQs, and
newsgroups about CUPS.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PrintingHOWTO/index.html The Linux Printing-HOWTO from
the Linux Documentation Project.
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User Security
Authentication
In the Authentication section, select
whether to use shadow passwords and MD5
encryption for user passwords.
The Authentication Configuration options
allow you to configure the following methods of
authentication:
NIS, LDAP, Kerberos 5, Hesiod, SMB, Name
Switch Cache
These methods are not enabled by default. To
enable one or more of these methods,
click the appropriate tab, click the checkbox next
to Enable, and enter the
appropriate information for the authentication
method.

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Network Security

Firewalls

Choose between
High, Medium,
and Disabled
security levels.

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Network Security

Common Access control system

/etc/hosts
/etc/hosts.allow
/etc/hosts.deny
/etc/hosts.equiv

For more info refer docs on iptable, firewall

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Sharing With Windows

SMB protocol to share files and printers

across a network connection. Operating
systems that support this protocol include
Microsoft Windows (through its Network
Neighborhood), OS/2, and Linux.
SMB implementation in Linux is called samba
There are two things one can do
Share

your files/printer with other windows

machine
Access windows shared printer/files on linux

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Allow Windows to share

You need to start samba server and nmb

server
/etc/rc.d/init.d/smb

What ever you want to share is added in

/etc/samba/smb.conf
Every

server

start

change in conf file require restarting of

Just browse OR find computer from windows

to see these files/folders
You can share folders, CD, printer

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To access windows share

Smbclient is a samba client

Smbclient

L myhost to see all share

Smbclient \\\\myhost\\myshare

This will login to share and you can access the share
\\\\myhost\\printer can be written to print files

Smbmount can be used to mount (map)

folders on to local host
Smbumount

to unmount

There are tools (GUI) for both sharing and

accessing files

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User Management

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User Management
Simple way to add user is adduser command
Passwd will allow to change the passwd
Ofcourse there are host of GUI tools for all
these user management
Group all common user to single group
Be carefull while editing /etc/passwd

/etc/shadow

passwd file may also exist

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User Management

Common files to look at

/etc/passwd
/etc/group
/etc/shadow
/etc/samba/smbusers

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User Management

Common files to look at

/etc/passwd
/etc/group
/etc/shadow
/etc/samba/smbusers

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Web server on Linux

Apache server is mostly available on Linux

Rpm

q all | grep apache to check

This can be started via init services

/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd

start

Configuration files are at /etc/httpd/conf/

Normally log files at /var/log/httpd

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User home pages

Will allow user to have home pages

http://myhost.com/~user1

Need to edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Enable

UserDir public_html
Any user can have their page at public_html
Eg. /home/user1/public_html for user1
/home/user2/public_html for user2

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System maintenance
Using package manager
Package Management Tool
Because people use their
computers differently, users might
want to install or remove packages
after installation. The Package
Management Tool allows users to
perform these actions.
RPM is good package

management tool in RedHat

Linux

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System maintenance (redhat)

The X Window System is

required to run the
Package Management
Tool.
To start the application, go
to the Main Menu Button
(on the Panel) => System
Settings => Add/Remove
Applications,
Type the command
redhat-config-packages at
shell prompt.
Command line tool rpm

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Lost Root Passwd

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Lost Root Passwd

If you have Lilo installed, type

LILI:

linux init 1
Change the root passwd, reboot aga

If you have installed grub

Type

e to go to edit mode, add init 1 argument at

the end

Boot with knoppix or single floppy linux

Mount

the disk and change root passwd

Reboot !!

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Cost Effective Linux Solutions

You have PC, with less harddisk for dual OS

You have PC, on which you do not want to
install Linux
Good

heaven's do not do that

There is a spurt of Linux PC requirements for

short duration of time
For

Linux LAB in one term OR during LAB

examinations

You have old PC, with out sizable hard disk

So you need Linux host for all the above case

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Cost Effective Linux Solution

Some most easy approach

Network

booting
Single CD Linux
Single floppy Linux
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Network Booting
No need for harddisk(or harddisk with
Linux) on every host
High level work flow

The

system boots up, may be with floppy

(could be with hard disk also)
Sends dhcp request for IP number, gets one
Mounts the root file system over NFS

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Requirements for Network

Booting
Setup an LAN infrastructure
Need to setup nfs server
Need to setup dhcp server
Build a kernel image for network booting

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Setup an LAN infrastructure

Ethernet
Cable

Hub

Ethernet
Cable

NFS server

Your m/c to be booted

Your host, NFS server and DHCP server should be on

same LAN

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Setup nfs server

Edit /etc/exports file before starting the nfs server.

/ 10.114.7.115(rw,no_root_squash)
This will export all files with root r/w to host
10.114.7.115

Save your exports file and from the prompt

execute exportfs command
Start the nfs server (nfs daemon)

E.g. /etc/rc.d/inid.d/nfs start

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Setup dhcp server

Add in your /etc/dhcpd.conf before starting the dhcp server.

Set the correct MAC address in /etc/dhcpd.conf as follows:

subnet <subnet address e.g.10.3.31.0> netmask 255.255.255.0 {

}
subnet 10.10.10.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
host master {
hardware Ethernet <Mac address of your Ethernet card>;
fixed-address <IP address of your machine e.g.10.10.10.1>;
option root-path <your root path>;
}
}
Save your /etc/dhcpd.conf file
start the dhcpd dameon by /etc/rc.d/init.d/dhcpd start command

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Build a kernel image for

network booting

Linux Kernel compilation steps:

Assumptions: machine x86 (i386); boot loader lilo.
Get plain vanilla kernel from www.kernel.org
Explode it into a directory (better if can do it in /usr/src/) => tar -zxvf linux2.x.xx.tar.gz
Optional: create a symbolic link ln -s linux-2.x.xx linux
cd to linux directory
cd /usr/src/linux or cd /usr/src/linux-2.x.xx
Select the components support by make menuconfig or make xconfig save the configuration

Select IP:BOOTP support from Networking options

In File system -> Network File System -> Select
NFS File system support and
Root file system on NFS

Do

Make dep bzImage

Make modules modules_install

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Build a kernel image for

network booting
Copy the
/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage
to /boot
Do mkbootdisk with new kernel as
argument
Optional take a coffee or tea break ?

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Putting all together..

Make

sure you are running dhcp

server
Make sure you are running nfs
server
On any PC that need Linux for
temporary time
Boot with new
Thats it !!!

floopy you just made

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Knoppix Single CD Linux

Knoppix is full Linux on a single CD

Can be freely downloaded from
www.knoppix.com
Just make your PC to boot from
CD, that is all required
Your current software (OS) on your
system will not be lost
If

there is less memory, you can

create temporary swap on dos
partation
You can access dos partation
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Knoppix more info

Hardware Requirements
Minimum

of 486 PC, 20M ram for text mode, 90M

for graphics mode and128M for office suite
Bootable CD drive + key board, mouse, multimedia

Software available
2.4

kernel, standard drivers, development tools,

Internet applications, multimedia applications
Upto 2GB worth software in total

How to load/install start

Step

1 put the 'cd' in drive, switch on the power

All the configuration is auto

Step

2 Enjoy working on Linux

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Knoppix can be handy

The fact is you need not install Knoppix on

harddisk
So

can be used in Demo of linux or software on

Linux
So you need extra Linux machine lab ?? 2 minutes
!!
No extra space on harddisk on old PC's, just use
knoppix
Got a new laptop, just boot Linux on that in a jiffy
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Knoppix in Emergency

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Knoppix at emergency

Lost root passwd, boot knoppix, mount the

harddisk, edit /mnt/etc/passwd, reboot old linux
Can

be dangerous, spurious user can do the same

Linux do not boot, boot with knoppix and

recover the important files
Best

part is you also recover lost dos/windows files

as well

You have screwed up your configuration

Boot

with knoppix and bring back to default

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Single Floppy Linux

Similar to Knoppix, but over a floppy

Will

have much lesser applications

Some distributions come with two or more floppy

MuLinux quite esay to use

http://mulinux.nevalabs.org/

Coyote linux: mostly for network applications

http://www.coyotelinux.com/

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References

http://www.tldp.org/ (The Linux Documentation Project) : It contains a lots and lots

of well documented and timely documents to learn and trouble shoot your Linux
system (its free)

The Linux System Administrators' Guide

Michael Stutz
Its free and available at http://www.tldp.org/guides.html

The Linux Network Administrator's Guide, Second Edition

Lars Wirzenius, Joanna Oja, Stephen Stafford, and Alex Weeks

Its free and available at http://www.tldp.org/guides.html

The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use

http://www.tldp.org/guides.html

Olaf Kirch and Terry Dawson

Its free and available at http://www.tldp.org/guides.html

http://www.redhat.com/docs/

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Thanks

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