K's lair - Debian Install guide

[ Debian Install ]

.:: Debian Install guide

After several years of windows reinstalling and tweaking and swearing my longs out, I recently started fiddeling with linux, because of earlyer dos experiences, extensive googling and a lot of wasted time the conversion wasn't that hard, but still..

This page is meant as an install 'guide' or reference for things to do making your own debian server. A lot of ppl are gonna take a look at this and laugh, because there are probably better and faster ways to do this, but this is how my complex little mind got things done.

.:: Debian netinstall guide overview

Quick overview for debian netinstall guide

Choosing Install Method

First personal touches

.:: Step 1 : Choosing an install methode

If you've made your choice (for any reason @ all) to start using a debian machine, I recommend using the netinstall ..
It's clean, it's small, it's completely every admin's wet dream ;)

it is limited to broadband users
(or those on 56k who have got waaaaay to much time and phone-line-credits on their hands :p)
but more important : those with cable connection, utp adslmodem or a usuable gateway.

Since all usb adsl modems are NOT supported by a minimum install debian, there will be some users for who netinstall is impossible and they'll have to consider downloading all isos.

.:: Step 2 : Install

Just download the netinstall iso from Debian.org and burn it, pop it in the drive and boot it !!

Make sure u've got a good supported network card
Try to give the machine enough ram, linux doesn't NEED much @ ALL, but still ..
A nice spacey harddrive is always nice ;)
Try using 3 partitions, a ext2 /, ext2 /home, /swap (+/- 200-400 MB)
Simple passwords for root account @ first because u'r gonna need it alot

Insert the install cd in the drive, boot the pc
If it doesn't boot the cd, enter bios and make necessary changes.
You get the boot screen : press enter to boot.
Select the desired language : English
English United States
Configure The keyboard
Initialize and Activate a swap partition
Initialize a linux partition
?Mount previously initialized swap partition

Install kernel and Driver modules
-> Use the sources from cdrom : Yes
Configure Device Driver modules
-> Insert correct network card module in kernel
Configure the network
-> enter hostname
-> Eth0
-> Use DHCP : Yes
Install the base system
Make System Bootable
Install in MBR
Reboot the system

Time set to gmt ? + Timezone configuration
Enable md5 passwords : Yes
Enable Shadow passwords : Yes
Enter root password
Create normal user account : Yes
Remove PCMCIA packages : if u're not installing on a laptop : Yes
Use PPP connection : No

Select APT-sourc : http / ftp
-> Use non-US software : Yes
-> Use non-free software : Yes
-> Use contrib software : Yes
-> Select country and mirror
-> Use Security Updates : No
Run Tasksel : If u want a preconfigured Solution : Yes, all normal people : No
Run Dselect : No
Configure Exim (If unsure, take option 5, u can always config later when more experienced)

Done !!

.:: Step 3 : First Login

Log into your fresh debian machine as normal user. You can change terminal by pressing <ctrl>+<alt>+<F1>-<F4>.
cd/ls around a bit to get the hang of things, and make sure u know what all dirs are for.
If they're not inhere, it means that I'm not 100% sure what they're for :p

Linux Filesystem starts @
/ (aka root directory) on which every part of your system is mounted.
/bin general programs.
/boot where various startup files are stored
/cdrom where your cdrom is mounted
/dev where all system devices (busses, ports, terminals, ....) are mounted
/etc is where all your configurations are stored.
/floppy where your floppy is mounted.
/home are user directories (for all personal docs and files)
/initrd for various startup scripts
/lib for system libraries
/lost+found used for file recovery
/mnt used to mount other drives in
/root for root-user files
/sbin for system programs
/tmp for temporary files
/usr for all user programs
/var for libraries, logs, programs, mail, ......

Look at the manuals (aka man pages) of :

cd, mv, cp, rm, mkdir, rmdir, ls, chmod, chown, ln for moving around and working with files
apt-get, vim, nano, dpkg, mount for general usage.
ps, jobs, bg, fg, top, screen for process manipulation

.:: Step 4 : First installs

Next, su yourself into root (type man su for usage and explanation)
(man <command> gives the documentation for the command if it exists)
and install some basic programs by using "apt-get install vim links gcc make screen bzip2 gzip ssh libncurses5-dev"

vim -> Vi Improved, text editor
links -> Command line browser
gcc -> C and C++ compiler
make -> make utility to maintain programs
screen -> screen manager with terminal emulation
bzip2 -> file compressor
gzip -> file compressor
ssh -> Secure Schell protocol and server
libncurses5-dev -> Command line graphic library

.:: Step 5 : Core Recompile

Open new terminal, log in as normal user.
Visit www.kernel.org and select the version of kernel source u want or download a pretty recent one here
.
by starting links, pressing g (for goto) and entering the url, go to the correct file and press d (for download), and exit links afterwards by pressing q (for quit).

Switch back to the superuser terminal, and goto the directory where the file was stored (home directory ?!?) and extracting the kernel source by either

tar -xvzf linux-2.*.**.tar.gz
or
bzip2 -d linux-2.*.**.tar.bz2;tar -xvvf *.tar;

Depending on what type of compressed file u chose to download (tar.gz or tar.bz2)
It can take some time, but it's nothing compared to the kernel compile itself :p

mv (from move) the linux-2.*.** directory to /usr/src/linux (by mv linux-2.*.** /usr/src/linux)
and enter it. make menuconfig and configure the kernel the way you want it to be.
After quitting the configuration program, make dep clean bzlilo modules modules_install (and go watch a movie or so :[)

reboot as superuser for cold boot, or shutdown -h now for system shutdown.

.:: Step 6 : First personal touches

vim both .bashrc and .bash_profile (just un-quote every codeline) and do the same for root-account.

To change from Woody (Stable) to Sarge (Testing):
Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change every occurence of stable to testing.
And if u want to apt-get mplayer as well, add the line : deb http://marillat.free.fr/ testing main
Run apt-get update which will retrieve new package listings, and apt-get upgrade which will perform the upgrade.

Make a personal bin directory in ~ (~ = home directory, (cd ~;mkdir bin;))

Give /etc/modules a visit and comment, insert or delete all modules u decided to compile as modules or in core.
those in core should be deleted, those as modules and required at bootup inserted there.

.:: Step 7 : Basic networking

Go to /etc/network/interfaces. As configured now, the machine searches a dhcp server to get an ip.
(the dhcp will most likely be located @ your gateway machine)

This is often not desirable, for various and very different reasons, static ip's are preferred/required. Users who have windows @ home can save themselves the pain of setting up a dns server by simply adding
the machine ip and name(s) to windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Following settings are for my personal machine, which is located behind a WinXP machine
with ICS (ICS = Internet Connection Sharing) which requires the use of 192.168.*.* network for internal ip's.

comment out auto eth0 and iface eth0 inet dhcp. and insert following lines :

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.3
network 192.168.0.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1

Off course don't forget to put all other machines with static hosts into the /etc/hosts file too, and vice versa !!

.:: Step 8 : SSH, it's a beauty isn't it ;)

SSH, Secure Shell, remote login to your machine by secure connection.

Download an ssh client (e.g. putty) for your windows machine here

Enter the ip of your machine, set the protocol to ssh and connect.
U'll get a similar screen as on your linux-terminals themselves, and u can open more then 4 ssh connections so no discomfort to working on the machine itself.

Instead of working with bg and fg, jobs and &, I switched to using screen, it takes less thinking, and is easyer for switching jobs between terminals.

Start the screen program we installed earlyer, you can control the creation, deletion, and manipulate multiple bash logins
By pressing <ctrl>+<a>+<c> you create a new screen.
By pressing <ctrl>+<a>+<space> you switch between screens.
By pressing exit you kill the screen, and if only one left, exit the screen program.
By pressing <ctrl>+<a>+<d> you detach a screen session.
By starting screen with screen -R you can re-attach a screen session to this terminal.

.:: Step 9 : Some other programs

Other wide-spread usage of debian machines is apache webservers for which u will have to install package apache and edit it's config in /etc/apache/httpd.conf

For easyer configuration, u could install webmin edit it's config /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf and add the ip of the machines from where u will acces the https config utility.
If u've named your machine Odin, and u've added the hostname and ip adress to the windows hosts file U can now acces the apache server as http://Odin and webmin config as https://Odin:10000

From there on in, configuration of system services becomes much easyer since webmin contains good help already.
Installing a samba-fileserver, irssi-text, ... they're all easy possibilities.

.:: Step 10 : Mounting filesystems

The most simple examples of mounting are cd-roms and floppy's,
mounted as mount /dev/cdrom /cdrom and mount /dev/fd0 /floppy, respectively.

Linux allows you to assign the devices, which are all,from mouseport to terminal to ...., mounted as /dev/

But what u have to realize is that the info for the mount, such as filesystem, options, is attained out of /etc/fstab, the real file u want to be messing around with ;D

Open it up with your favorite editor (nano, vim?), and if u've followed the install guide, it should look somewhat like this :

Filesystem	Mount Point	Type	Options	Dump	Pass
/dev/hda1	/	ext2	errors=remount-ro	0	1
/dev/hda3	none	swap	sw	0	0
proc	/proc	proc	defaults	0	0
/dev/fd0	/floppy	auto	user,noauto	0	0
/dev/cdrom	/cdrom	iso9660	ro,user,noauto	0	0
/dev/hda2	/home	ext2	defaults	0	2

The meaning of this should be pretty clear, if u know

ext2 is the default filesystem for linux
ro = read only
iso9660 = a cdrom standard
dump 0/1 = wheater the filesystem needs to be dumped
pass 0/1 = if checks should be performed on the filesystem

Say u have another fat32 formatted hard disk in there, and it's positioned @ ide2, that is master of secondary ide.
Make a directory called windrive in /mnt by mkdir /mnt/windrive
Open up /etc/fstab and add following line :

/dev/hdc /mnt/windrive vfat user,umask=000 0 0

This means that every user will have equal rights over the system. For ntfs disks (which is still only supported RO in kernel 2.4.*)
u should add same line, with Type ntfs, Options ro,user,umask=000