Two-Minute Drill


The following are some of the key points from the certification objectives in Chapter 2.

Hardware Compatibility

  

If you have a subscription to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it's best to use hardware tested and documented by Red Hat. Alternative sources of documentation include the Hardware Compatibility List of the Linux Documentation Project.

  

Linux has made excellent progress with plug and play; if conflicts occur, you may be able to diagnose them with the help of files in the /proc directory.

CPU and RAM

  

Typically, swap space should be two to three times the amount of RAM. However, the amount of swap space you need is debatable when you have larger amounts of RAM.

  

Depending on your requirements, Red Hat Enterprise Linux installs between approximately 512MB and 10GB of files. This does not include swap space requirements.

  

When you plan space for any RHEL installation, remember to leave room for user data, additional applications, services, and a swap partition.

Hotswap Buses

  

Linux plug and play works well; in most cases, when you plug a device into a serial, parallel, USB, IEEE 1394, or PC Card port, Linux detects and adds the drivers automatically. If an external disk is present, it is automatically mounted.

  

Device Management includes a number of commands that can help you find detected devices and modules, including lsusb, lspci, and lshal.

Configuring a Network Installation

  

When practicing for the exam, you may need to install over a network.

  

You can create a network installation server using NFS, HTTP, or FTP.

  

You can even install locally from a hard drive partition.

The First Installation Steps

  

You can usually start the RHEL installation process directly from a bootable CD or USB key.

  

The installation process is fairly straightforward and self-explanatory. Default package groups depend on the installation subscription number.

  

When you practice installing RHEL, don't worry if you make a mistake during the process. It is usually easiest to restart the process from the beginning.

Configuring Partitions, RAID, and LVM

  

Linux has a simple naming standard for disk partitions: three letters followed by a number. The first letter reflects the type of drive (h for PATA/IDE, s for SATA or SCSI). The second letter is d for drive. The third letter represents the relative position of the disk. The number that follows is based on the relative position of the partition on the disk.

  

The first PATA/IDE drive would be hda and the next hdb, then hdc, and hdd.

  

It's helpful to configure separate partitions for important data such as Web services, databases, FTP sites, and e-mail.

  

Unless you use LVM, there is no easy way to resize Linux partitions. Therefore, you need to consider your partition scheme carefully.

Post-partition Installation Steps

  

After configuring partitions, you'll need to set up network devices and assign a root password.

  

The baseline packages associated with different subscriptions vary; you can customize them during the post-partition installation steps.

Post-installation, Security, and the First Boot Process

  

After installation is complete, RHEL reboots and starts the First Boot process.

  

The First Boot process takes you through licensing, configuring firewalls, enabling or disabling SELinux, configuring date and time, adding the first regular user, setting up sound cards, and more.

  

If you didn't install the GUI, the First Boot process is the setup tool that is a front end to a number of other text-based tools.

Installation Validation

  

If you have trouble during the installation process, a number of log files can help.

  

There are several virtual consoles that can help you validate the installation.



RHCE Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide (Exam RH302)
Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up To Date
ISBN: 0132366754
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 227
Authors: Michael Jang

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