Summary

On the 7 May 2002 Red Hat started shipping an operating system upgrade of Red Hat 7.2, called Red Hat 7.3. On the 8 May 2002 I posted the first review of Red Hat 7.3. It handles about the upgrade of Red Hat 7.2 to the just released 7.3. Below I will describe a text based server install using NFS. This version of Red Hat 7.3 consists of 3 discs with a supplemental documentation disc.

Hardware

The PC consists of the following hardware:
Cyrix model 2 6x86 stepping 7 120 Mhz 119.60 bogomips
32 MB memory
1 GB swap
Seagate ST330620A ATA DISK drive 30 GB
SIS5513: IDE controller
Winbond 89C940 network card
CMI8330/C3D Audio Adapter (integrated on motherboard)
SiS 5597/5598 VGA (rev 68) video card (integrated on motherboard)

Preparing the NFS file server

In order to use an NFS install, you can use ISO images or copy all files in one directory. I choose to copy all files in a directory, because I was leaving, and wanted the install to be (almost) finished when I came back. After the files were copied, I had to change /etc/exports to add the directory in which the RedHat directory was located. After that I started nfs:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/nfs start

Start of the install

I booted the PC with a boot floppy (bootnet.img), which was created by:
dd if=bootnet.img of=/dev/fd0

I entered text to disable a graphical install (I tried that already for my previous article) about the upgrade from Red Hat 7.2 to 7.3. I selected English as the install language. After that it asked for the type of keyboard, and I selected us. Then it asked: What type of media contains the packages to be installed?
NFS image
FTP
HTTP

I choose NFS. After that it needed me to configure TCP/IP: Please enter the IP configuration for this machine. Each item should be entered as an IP address in dotted-decimal notation (for example, 1.2.3.4). It gave the option of a dynamic IP configuration (BOOTP/DHCP), or manual. I choose manual, because this should become the DHCP server. I entered:
IP address: 192.168.24.7, After that the netmask, default gateway (IP) and primary name server were automagically filled in for me.

After that I had to enter the NFS server name (192.168.24.1) and the directory (/mnt/misc/rh7.3) in which I copied the three RedHat directories from the three installation CDROM's.

After that my PC was probed for it's hardware, and a welcome screen appeared. I selected a Generic 3 button serial mouse at /dev/ttyS0.

Type of installation

Then it asked which type of system I wanted to install:

Workstation
Server
Laptop
Custom
Upgrade Existing System

I missed the option to install for firewall use only. I choose Server.

Disk partitioning

Then Disk partitioning Setup appeared, giving three options:
Autopartition
sets up your partition based on the install type. The resulting partitions can be customised.
Disk Druid
Manual disk partitioning
fdisk
Text based manual disk partitioning

I choose autopartition to see what it would suggest for a Server on a 30 GB disc. I was given three options:
Remove all Linux Partitions on this system
Remove all Partitions on this system
Keep all partitions and use existing free space
It also asked which drives to use for the installation, but I removed all other discs so only one was found. I choose the default, to remove all partitions. After that a warning appeared that all partitions (data) are removed, are you sure? I selected Yes (it defaulted to No).

The following layout as suggested for the 30 GB disc:
/dev/hda1: 47M, ext3, /boot
/dev/hda2: 20316M, ext3, /usr
/dev/hda3: 7428M, ext3, /home
/dev/hda4: 831M, extended
/dev/hda5: 384M, ext3, /
/dev/hda6: 258M, ext3, /var
/dev/hda7: 188M, swap

I didn't like the suggestion for various reasons, so I deleted all partitions and created them with self chosen sizes:
/dev/hda1: 258M, ext3, /boot
/dev/hda2: 10236M, ext3, /home
/dev/hda3: 6142M, ext3, /usr
/dev/hda4: 11985M, extended
/dev/hda5: 2047M, ext3, /
/dev/hda6: 1027M, swap
/dev/hda7: 1027M, ext3, /tmp
/dev/hda8: 1027M, ext3, /var
/dev/hda7: 6855M, ext3, /mnt/misc

I also choose to have all partitions checked for bad blocks. After that a low memory warning appeared:
As you don't have much memory in this machine, we need to turn on swap space immediately. To do this, we'll have to write your new partition table to disk immediately. Is that okay?

Boot loader

I pressed OK, and it asked which boot loader I wanted to use:
Use GRUB Boot Loader
Use LILO Boot Loader
No Boot Loader

I choose using grub. Then it wanted to know were the boot loader must be installed:
/dev/hda Master Boot Record (MBR)
/dev/hda1 First sector of boot partition

I choose MBR, the default. What's missing is some explanation text when a user has something to choose. Not everybody has the experience, a printed manual or access to another computer during installation. It prompted to add kernel options for booting or forcing the use of LBA32. I didn't choose any of those. In the following screen it asked which partitions I wanted to boot from, it gave the following:
/dev/hda1, OS/2 / Windows NT
/dev/hda5, ext3, default, Red Hat Linux

This is very clumsy, /dev/hda1 is the /boot partition and has an ext3 file system on it after the installation has finished! The partition couldn't even be deleted! I will have to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf myself after the installation. I installed a grub password to prevent users passing options to the kernel. Off course this is a partial solution, the machine needs to be protected physically, to prevent booting from a floppy, CDROM, network etc.

Network

Then I was prompted for the network configuration for eth0. I could choose:
Use bootp/dhcp
Activate on boot, which was the default
The IP address, netmask, default gateway (IP) and primary name server were automagically filled in for me, it gave the option to add a secondary and third nameserver.

Then I had to enter a host name, I choose tux. Then the firewall configuration appeared. The security level could be chosen from these options:
High
Medium (default)
No firewall

I choose No firewall for now, to ease installing and upgrading the server. After that it will become high and customised. Then I was prompted if I wanted to install additional languages. English (USA) was the default, and I added dutch out of curiosity. Then I choose English as the default. Then the time zone selection appeared, I selected to set the hardware clock to GMT, an choose Europe/Amsterdam. Then the root password must be given, and user accounts can be added. I added myself and continued.

Packages

It read the package information, and by default it wanted to install 974M. The package selection gives the following options:
Classic X Window System (default)
X Window System
GNOME
KDE
News Server
NFS File Server
Windows File Server
Anonymous Ftp Server
SQL Database Server
Web Server
DNS Name Server

It also gave the possibility to select individual packages. I selected all options because disk space permits it (I hope). It checked the dependencies and quickly gave a video card configuration dialogue. It found a Sis 5598 with 1024 MB. I pressed ok and the installation begins. It creates a file /root/install.log about

Installing software

It creates a file /root/install.log about the installation. Then it starts looking for bad blocks. Because it's a public holiday in the Netherlands today (May 20th., Whit Monday), I'm going to enjoy the weather (It's 11:00, and the sun is shining). I will see in a couple of hours if the install succeeded. Almost eight hours later I came back, and the installation prompted that it wanted to create a boot disc Off course I inserted a disc. After a warning the boot disk was created. After creation I had to indicate the monitor type that is attached to the PC and how the X Server should be configured. The test was ok, I selected KDE as my default desktop and choose a text login, because it's primary use will be that of a server. After that the congratulations message appeared!. The PC was rebooting and GRUB appeared, after which Red Hat 7.3 booted. Kudzu indicated the presence of new hardware, and I configured the on board sound card.

Updates

Five security fixes and two bug fix packages are currently (May 22th.) available:
Updated fetchmail packages available
Updated Mozilla packages fix a security issue
perl-Digest-MD5 UTF8 bug results in incorrect MD5 sums
Netfilter information leak
Kernel panic on SMP systems with ext3 file systems is now fixed.
Malformed header can crash evolution
Updated mod_python packages available

More information about them can be found in my previous article.

To update your Red Hat system when you are on line on the internet, up2date can be used which retrieves needed packages for you and installs them.

Remarks

I used the text install in stead of the graphical install. Those two are not consistent, they don't use the same information, and are not presenting information the same way. More help available during install would be welcome, not everybody has a printed manual or another computer at hand. During disk partitioning the auto magic partition followed by editing by hand crashed, I choose disk druid afterwards without problems.

Conclusion

The installation went very smooth. I will have to configure the machine further the following days, in order to act as a firewall. A second network card will be installed etc. I will keep you informed.

Aschwin Marsman
(a.marsman@aYniK.com)
aYniK Software Solutions

Please mail your updates/questions/reaction on your own install experience, then I can add them to this page if the information is also useful to others. General questions should be asked in the appropriate newsgroups, and not only be sent to me.

Links

Red Hat
On line Resources for Red Hat Linux 7.3
Errata for Red Hat Linux 7.3
Documentation errata for Red Hat Linux 7.3
DistroWatch Red Hat page
Linux Weekly News Distributions page of May 9th.
The Linux Documentation Project.

Author background

In 1990 I started using UNIX systems during study, and did my first Linux installation in Febrary 1993, a SLS distribution on several floppy discs with a 0.9x kernel. After SLS was no longer maintained, I switched to Slackware, which was followed by Red Hat as the main operating system. Also other distributions were tried and used like Debian, Mandrake and SuSE, of which version 7.3 was recently installed on my new acquired laptop. I worked on a project basis at several projects in the Netherlands on e.g. wafer stepper software, software for cancer treatment, SCADA software, industrial software, military software etc. In 2001 I started my own company called aYniK Software Solutions, which delivers software development expertise on Linux and UNIX systems using C and C++ among others. I am currently working on air traffic control software for airports in Europe and Asia.