Installation of
Scientific Linux 4
UNIX at SLAC
Linux at SLAC
|
|
Installation of
|
SLAC Computing UNIX at SLAC Linux at SLAC |
| Updated: 19 Jun 2008 |
Note: These are not complete Scientific Linux installation instructions; go to the Scientific Linux page for more complete information.
This procedure does a "clean install", not an upgrade. If you follow SCCS recommendations against storing permanent data on a workstation's system disk, this should not be a problem. If you do have some data you want to preserve on this disk, but it is all stored in a non-system partition, e.g., /u1, you might be OK, providing your system partitions are large enough to accommodate Scientific Linux 4 with sufficient room for future updates (see Disk Partitions, below). Otherwise, it is your responsibility to backup your data before beginning the installation. If you must restore it to a local filesystem after the installation, we strongly urge you to buy a second disk and keep permanent data off the system disk.
It may be helpful to work next to a machine with a web browser displaying the information on this web page.
The installation program is mostly self-explanatory if you have installed UNIX or Linux before. We will only mention either complex or SLAC-specific issues below.
To make a bootable CDROM for installing SL4, you will need to burn an ISO 9660 image file onto CD-R (or CD-RW) media. On a Linux system running the GNOME desktop you can do this directly from the Nautilus file browser; or you can use an application like cdrecord, a command-line tool. (You can also burn an image file to a CDROM from a Windows XP or Mac OSX system.)
/afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/i386/images/SL
cd /afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/i386/images/SL
ls boot.iso
cdrecord -scanbus
You'll get some output identifying the devices on your bus;
for example:
...
1,0,0 100) 'TSSTcorp' 'CD-RW TS-H292B' 'DE03' Removable CD-ROM
1,1,0 101) 'HL-DT-ST' 'DVD+-RW GWA4164B' 'D108' Removable CD-ROM
1,2,0 102) *
1,3,0 103) *
1,4,0 104) *
1,5,0 105) *
1,6,0 106) *
1,7,0 107) *
In this example, the first two lines identify a CD and a
DVD drive. The first field in each line is the device
addres, e.g., "1,0,0", is your CDROM device address. This
is the information you'll need.
cdrecord -v dev=1,0,0 -eject boot.iso
On some systems you may need to prefix the device address with a
transport layer indicator, such as 'ATA:' or
'ATAPI:', or you may need additional options on the cdrecord
command line. See the man page for cdrecord for details.
If you haven't burned any CDROMs before, it's a good idea to run some tests first by adding the '-dummy' option to the cdrecord command line.
You might also want to consider burning a "rescue disc" for use in case of problems with the system on your hard disk. The procedure is similar to the above and you can find the appropriate image in the directory, /afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/iso/i386. Look for a file ending in "...disc1.iso" and including the current SL4 update level, e.g., for update level 45, the appropriate image is "SL.45.062507.i386.disc1.iso". Incidentally, it should also be possible to install from a rescue disk, but you'll need to add the 'askmethod' argument to the command line when the installation program starts up.
Stick the CDROM in the drive and reboot your machine.
If your machine ignores the CDROM at boot time, and simply reboots the existing system on the hard disk, there is most likely a problem with the boot order in the BIOS. You can usually get into the BIOS by pressing a function key (usually F2) early in the boot process. The various BIOS screens vary quite a bit, even within a single vendor's products. However, there is usually a place where you can specify the order in which the BIOS should look for a bootable device. You should make sure it looks at the CDROM drive before the hard disk.
At the boot: prompt, you can choose between installing
in graphical or text mode. Unless you have an older monitor or
video card, it should be OK to just press the Enter key and run
the installation in graphical mode. To run in text mode, type
linux text and press the Enter key.
The installer will take a minute or two to load. Once you are in the install program, follow the directions until you get to the question about Installation Method.
If you get as far as the GUI installer screen, i.e., with a Help panel on the left side of the screen and a button at the for displaying the Release notes, without being asked about Installation Method, you started the installation from disc 1 of a complete set of installation CDROMs rather than from the special installation boot CDROM. Unless you've burned the rest of the CDROMs in the set, you'll have to start over and be sure to enter the 'askmethod' argument at the boot: prompt.
N.B. There may be some variations in the order of the screens in the installation program depending on your exact hardware configuration and/or the choices you make, so it's probably a good idea to read through the rest of this section before proceeding.
Also N.B. When installing in graphical mode, we saw at least one instance of a mis-sized screen panel that covered the Next and Back buttons at the bottom of the screen. If this should happen, you should still be able to use the Alt-N or Alt-B key combinations to navigate.
Next, you will be asked to configure TCP/IP. Uncheck Use dynamic IP configuration (BOOTP/DHCP) and enter the IP Address, Netmask, Default gateway and Primary nameserver information given to you by SCCS when you requested your node name and IP address.
WARNING:Please be careful to enter this information accurately, since errors can disrupt the network.
Note that the Scientific Linux install program will try to guess your Default gateway and Primary nameserver after you enter your IP address and Netmask, and will set these up as defaults. These Scientific Linux supplied values are most likely wrong. If you don't know one or more of these values, please ask the Help Desk or unix-admin -- do not use the Scientific Linux supplied values.
Next you will be asked for NFS setup information.
The NFS server name is afsnfs2
and the SL directory is one of the following:
/afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/x86_64./afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/i386.If the directory can't be mounted, check that you've entered your networking parameters and the server name and directory path correctly. It's also possible that you may have booted from an older CDROM that was burned from an earlier version of Scientific Linux. In that case you'll need to burn a current CDROM.
Continue with the prompts.
Choose Custom for the Installation Type.
At the Disk Partitioning Setup screen, select Manually partition with Disk Druid. The default partitioning scheme used by the Automatically partition option is not suitable for use in the SLAC environment.
The table below shows suggested partitioning schemes for two different size disks, representing typical sizes of disks available on older hardware still in service here at SLAC. Newer systems usually have substantially larger system disks.
Make sure to give Linux at least a 9 GB root partition. If your root partition is smaller, you should omit installing some of the software package groups recommended below, in order to allow room for future upgrades and security patches. Similarly, if you install more package groups than suggested below, you will probably need a larger root partition -- perhaps 10-12 GB if you install nearly everything. Small root partitions can make it difficult or impossible to install required security patches later on. Systems that cannot apply required security patches in a timely fashion may be denied access to the SLAC network.
You should also create a swap partition at least as large as the memory (twice the main memory is a good rule of thumb for the size of the swap partition).
If there is sufficient space, we recommend that you allocate an
/scswork partition of 1 GB, to be reserved for the
exclusive use of SCCS. Use the rest for scratch space; for
example, you might want to create a larger /tmp or
add a separate /scratch directory. Note that older
files in /tmp are periodically removed but files in
/scratch will remain until removed by you unless the
system is re-installed.
Always choose to format your Linux partitions. Use the new, ext3 filesystem type on all partitions except for the /usr/vice/cache and swap partitions. Use ext2 for the /usr/vice/cache partition since ext3 and AFS cache partitions do not get along (at least as of July 2007). ext3 is a journaling filesystem and will permit much faster recovery following crashes.
WARNING! You should not allocate any partitions on the system disk for permanent data. Because of the large sizes of currently available disks, you may be strongly tempted to ignore this warning. However, it is very risky to do so, because:
The best way to make use of extra space on your system disk is to allocate a large /tmp or /scratch partition. If you need additional permanent space, please contact unix-admin@slac.stanford.edu; we will do our best to help you acquire reliable, backed-up storage at a reasonable cost. If you ignore this warning, it will be your responsibility to save and restore your data the next time your system needs to be re-installed.
Note that partition names and numbers, and the order of the partitions, are assigned automatically by Disk Druid. Also, the actual sizes of allocated partitions may vary a little bit from what you request via Disk Druid's GUI interface. This may make it difficult to allocate every last block on the disk.
| Partition Mount Point |
Partition Type |
Partition Size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 GB disk | +18 GB or larger disk | ||
| / | ext3 | 9 GB | 12 GB |
| swap | swap | 1 x memory or at least 512 MB |
2 x memory or at least 1 GB |
| /var | ext3 | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| /usr/vice/cache | ext2 | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| /tmp | ext3 | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| /scswork | ext3 | omit | 1 GB |
| /scratch (or extra /tmp space) | ext3 | omit | remainder |
We recommend that you use the default boot loader, GRUB, and accept the defaults for the other options on this screen.
The Network Devices area of this screen should show
the same information you entered above in the TCP/IP Setup
when requesting an NFS installation.
For Set the hostname:, select manually
and enter your hostname.
If you will be using your system within the SLAC environment,
you will need to select No firewall.
However, if you are installing a stand-alone system, e.g., for use
from your home, or a laptop that will be connected to the Internet
from outside SLAC's firewall, you may want to learn more about the
firewall facilities in Scientific Linux in order to better protect
your system. Please refer to the firewall documentation at
IPTables for more
information.
SCCS does not currently support Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux).
At the Enable SELinux?: pulldown menu, select
Disabled.
You can select the default, English (USA). If you wish, select one or more additional languages.
Select the time zone, either by location or UTC offset (e.g., by clicking on a nearby city, such as Los Angeles, on the map or by selecting UTC-08 plus daylight savings time on the UTC Offset tab). You should not check the "System clock uses UTC" box on dual-booted machines (note that SCCS strongly discourages dual boot machines).
Choose a
good root password and
DON'T FORGET IT!
Note that SLAC's post-installation tool taylor will
override the one you set at this screen.
You may select package groups or individual packages to be installed. To see what packages are in a particular group, click on Details (you'll have to select the group if its not already selected, but you can always unselect it if you don't find any packages of interest). Some groups have optional parts; in the Details screen you can select or unselect these options. The default groups are probably a pretty good starting point for most users:
| Scientific Linux Default |
SCCS Recommendation |
Package Groups |
|---|---|---|
| Desktops | ||
[*] |
[*] |
X Window System |
[*] |
[*] |
GNOME Desktop Environment |
[ ] |
[*] |
KDE Desktop Environment |
[ ] |
[ ] |
ICE Desktop Environment |
| Scientific Linux Additional Choices | ||
[ ] |
[ ] |
OpenAFS Client† |
[ ] |
[?] |
OpenOffice2 |
[ ] |
[ ] |
YUM† |
[ ] |
[ ] |
APT |
[ ] |
[?] |
Packages added to Scientific Linux |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Cluster Suite |
[ ] |
[ ] |
GFS Suite |
| Applications | ||
[ ] |
[*] |
Editors |
[ ] |
[*] |
Engineering and Scientific |
[*] |
[*] |
Graphical Internet |
[*] |
[*] |
Text-based Internet |
[*] |
[*] |
Office/Productivity |
[*] |
[*] |
Sound and Video |
[ ] |
[*] |
Authoring and Publishing |
[*] |
[*] |
Graphics |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Games and Entertainment |
| Servers (Please see SCCS before installing) | ||
[ ] |
[ ] |
Server Configuration Tools |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Web Server |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Mail Server |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Windows File Server |
[ ] |
[ ] |
DNS Name Server |
[ ] |
[ ] |
FTP Server |
[ ] |
[ ] |
PostgreSQL Database |
[ ] |
[ ] |
MySQL Database |
[ ] |
[ ] |
News Server |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Network Servers |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Legacy Network Server |
| Development | ||
[ ] |
[*] |
Development Tools |
[ ] |
[?] |
X Software Development |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Gnome Software Development |
[ ] |
[ ] |
KDE Software Development |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Legacy Software Development |
| System | ||
[ ] |
[ ] |
Administration Tools |
[ ] |
[ ] |
System Tools |
[*] |
[*] |
Printing Support |
| Miscellaneous | ||
[ ] |
[ ] |
Everything |
[ ] |
[ ] |
Minimal |
2,642M |
3,828M |
Total install size |
| †Installed by Taylor | ||
In addition to the Scientific Linux defaults, we recommend adding the following groups:
The section titled Scientific Linux Additional Choices contains a number of groups of packages that do not correspond to packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. None of these packages is selected by default, but a few of them might be of interest to some SLAC users. Examples include gv, back-level compatibility versions of the ncurses and readline packages and some wireless drivers.
Note that SCCS does not recommend installing the OpenAFS or YUM groups from this section; these will be installed by Taylor instead.
Please do not install servers unless you really know what you are doing and okay it with SCCS first. And please don't select "Everything" which would also install the servers.
Note that the Total install size at the bottom of
the table simply shows the sum of the package sizes, and is only
intended to give a rough idea of relative sizes for different
collections of packages. You must allocate a
root partition significantly larger than these minimums to get a
workable system and to reserve space to install package updates
(especially security updates).
Don't worry too much about getting every package you might ever want -- you can always add additional packages later.
It may take 15 minutes to over an hour to install the packages depending on what software you've selected and the speed of your machine and network connection. The installation program will reboot the machine when it is finished. Make sure to remove the CDROM used for the initial boot of the installation program.
The installation program usually does a good job of setting a
default X configuration. However, if either the monitor or the
video is a very recently introduced new model, the installer may
be forced to fall-back to a very low resolution. If you need to
change the configuration of X Windows, use the configuration tool
system-config-display. You will probably need to
gather the following information about your video hardware:
If you can't get a satisfactory X configuration using this tool
then you will have to fiddle with the
/etc/X11/xorg.conf file. See the xorg.conf(5x) man
page for information on the format of this file and it's many
device-independent options. There are also device-specific man
pages for the various supported video drivers -- see the SEE
ALSO section of xorg.conf(5x) for some of the driver names.
Do not increase the refresh rate ranges on your
monitor unless you are absolutely sure it is supported!
For more information about setting up X Windows, see the sections on configuring your video card and monitor in the Installation Guide.
If your sound card was not automatically configured by the
installation program or during the initial boot (by a program
called "kudzu"), you can try running (as root) the Sound Card
Configuration Tool. You need to do this in X Windows. You can
also run this tool by entering
system-config-soundcard on the command line, or by
choosing Applications => System Settings => Soundcard Detection.
Note that this tool requires that you have an X server running.
For more information, see the section on
Problems with Sound Configuration
in the Installation Guide. If you have an unusual sound card,
you may also have to search the web for detailed help on
configuring it.
WARNING: This is not for laptop users.
Taylor is the tool used by SCCS for administering the very large number of UNIX (including Linux) systems for which we are responsible. It can be run after the Scientific Linux installation program to automatically configure your new system to be integrated into the SLAC environment. It installs a cronjob which will maintain your system automatically.
Some of the things Taylor does include:
/usr/local to point to
SLAC AFS /usr/local for Linux.For additional information, see the Taylor Web page.
Taylor uses a configuration file, /etc/taylor.opts,
to control its actions.
If you don't have this file the first time you run Taylor,
it will install one with a reasonable set of defaults.
However, you may want to set some of these options
before you run Taylor the first time,
since the root password you set during installation
will otherwise be overridden at this point.
If your machine was previously taylored, you will most likely
want to restore most or all of the options from your old
taylor.opts file
(you did print a copy
before beginning, right?).
If your machine is connected to a
non-autonegotiating (fixed speed) 100 MB/s port,
it is particularly important to include the option,
ethernet=100mb.
If you are not sure, omit this option or check with net-admin.
If your machine has not been previously taylored,
look in
/afs/slac/package/taylor/taylor.opts
for a sample taylor.opts file.
In particular, this file includes commented out examples examples showing how to:
For a more complete list of options,
type man taylor.opts.
After running Taylor the first time,
if you subsequently need an option changed
and can no longer modify /etc/taylor.opts yourself,
contact one of your Linux Desktop Support people
or send mail to
unix-admin.
To install and run Taylor, execute the following command:
elinks -source http://www/comp/unix/linux/go-taylor | sh
You will be asked whether to use the version of /usr/local
maintained by SCCS or set up a private /usr/local. We highly
recommend that you use the central one.
Taylor will probably take some time to complete its work. If there is
an error and you can see how to fix the problem, it is safe to rerun
go-taylor afterward. If you have an error you cannot understand
or fix, send email to
unix-admin to request help. If possible, paste the error
messages from Taylor into the email (you can find a log of the
go-taylor run in /var/adm/taylor/logs/install).
If you receive your email via the UNIX mail spool
rather than SLAC's Exchange server,
you'll need access to
/nfs/mailspool/mail/<your_UID>.
Some users may also want to access
other central NFS file servers from their Linux workstations.
Access to NFS is not automatic;
for security reasons you must submit a request to SCCS
for permission to mount our central servers.
There is a simple
NFS Access form for this purpose
if you do not need any superuser privileges on the machine.
If you also need privileges, see the next section.
If you need superuser privileges
(i.e., the root password and/or sudo ALL)
on your machine, you will need to carefully read the
Superuser/NFS Privileges page,
then fill out and submit the form you'll find there.
If you also need NFS access, you must request it via this same form.
SLAC maintains a mirror of the Scientific Linux 4 distribution at
/afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4. The mirror is updated nightly.
Within this directory, you can find a complete set of RPMs from the currently recommended update level of Scientific Linux at:
/afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/i386/SL/RPMS/
This is sometimes referred to as the base area or directory. RPMs with security fixes since the current recommended update level can be found in the following directory:
/afs/slac/package/SciLinux/SL4/cur/i386/errata/SL/RPMS
Under the ".../errata/" directory there may also be a directory or directories named 'bugfix' and/or 'fastbugs' with non security patches since the current recommended update level (SL's naming conventions are a bit of a moving target).
The application, yum, is used to update packages. See the
yum man page for details on the command.
Look in our RPM repository for additional RPMS that you might want to install (be sure to always check the updates area as well as the quarterly base directory in case there have been any recent security updates). To read the description of one of these packages, change to the appropriate directory of the repository and use the rpm program as in the following example:
rpm -qip enscript-1.6.1-24.i386.rpm
None at this time.
subscribe linux-l".If you need more information, please have a look at our Linux Resources page.