Part Three: Installing Software

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Chapter 7: Installing and Configuring Software

Chapter 8: OpenSSH Secure Shell

Chapter 9: Pluggable Authentication Modules

Chapter 10: Dante SOCKS Library

Chapter 11: The Apache HTTP Server

Chapter 12: Concurrent Versions System

Chapter 13: Sun Microsystems’ Java Development Kit

Welcome to Part Three of Tuning and Customizing a Linux System! Part One of this book covered the basics of Linux, and Part Two discussed three major distributions in detail. These two sections should have helped you attain a working knowledge of Linux systems, and now you're probably ready to actually get down to work and customize your system.

Part Three discusses how to install and configure software on a Linux system. Chapter 7 covers the basics of software installation and configuration and discusses some broad generalizations and techniques that may be useful. Chapters 8 through 13 provide detailed examinations of the installations of several example software packages. The example software packages were chosen to illustrate the general points raised in Chapter 7. Once you've finished reading these chapters, you'll be equipped to install and configure (or at least teach yourself how to install and configure) virtually any software you come across.

The following table summarizes the examples in these chapters and which techniques outlined in Chapter 7 the examples demonstrate.

Sample Software Installations

SOFTWARE PACKAGE COVERAGE	CHAPTER	TECHNIQUE DEMONSTRATED
OpenSSH secure shell	Chapter 8	Global configuration file
Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)	Chapter 9	Drop-in configuration directory
Dante SOCKS library	Chapter 10	Userspace software library
Apache Web server	Chapter 11	Flat directory installation
Concurrent Versions System (CVS)	Chapter 12	inetd service
Sun Microsystems' JDK	Chapter 13	Flat package with user environment variables

Each example software installation will include a summary of the software itself, a synopsis of the installation procedure, a list of potential pitfalls, and detailed lists of any commands, scripts, or other information required to accomplish an actual installation on each of the sample distributions. For example, this might include SysV-compatible scripts to hook the software into the bootup sequence on a Red Hat Linux system.

Another important thing to note is that some of the software in these examples may already be present on a given distribution, so check your system to see if the packages are installed or available for installation. If you attempt to install the software described in these chapters while packages provided by your vendor are already installed, neither installation may work. Make sure to check and remove any packages that are already installed before you attempt to install them yourself.

Finally, remember that these chapters are here to provide examples, and the packages were selected primarily to illustrate specific types of installations. Even if the packages are already installed—or if they're not installed and aren't needed—it will still be worth your time to read their sections in these chapters, just to get insight into that class of software installation. Beyond that, the last section of this book, Part Four, contains a set of case studies that demonstrate actual uses of a Linux system in a variety of configurations. Those chapters draw extensively on the material in Chapters 8 through 13. You are strongly encouraged to read or at least skim the chapters in Part Four before tackling the case studies.

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