Lab Exercise 5.2: Preparing to Install NNLS

The moment is finally here! You're sufficiently prepared to install NNLS. In this exercise, you will install NNLS on the Linux server you installed and configured in earlier chapters of this book.

In this lab, you're going to install all the NNLS components on the same server. For a lab exercise, this is an acceptable practice. For a production server, however, you should distribute the various components among several servers.

Warning

A word of warning before beginning: As with the previous exercise in this chapter, this exercise requires you to access a website on the Internet and download the evaluation version of NNLS.

You need to have reliable Internet access to do this. When writing this exercise, I've assumed that you have set up your system in a work environment that has Internet access through your LAN. In this situation, the NNLS download should take less than an hour or so.

If you are going to try this from a system at home using a modem, be sure you allow enough time for the NNLS download.

Because it is more than 300MB in size , you should start the download the night before and let it run overnight. Be aware, however, that many dial-up ISPs periodically check their current PPP connections for activity. They then terminate connections that appear to be inactive.

Even though you're in the midst of a heavy download, they may deem your connection to be inactive and disconnect you. (I've had that happen many times myself .)

As with the previous exercise, the URLS and links specified in the lab were correct at the time this was written.

In this lab, I'm assuming that you have already configured the xntpd daemon on your system and that SLP has been implemented.

To install NNLS, complete the following steps:

1. Boot your Linux server and authenticate as your student user with a password of novell .
   
   
2. Open a terminal session.
   
   
3. Change to the root user account by entering su - and supplying a password of novell .
   
   
4. Verify that you have a multicast route added to your routing table by entering netstat -nr . You should see a route for the 224.0.0.0 destination. If not, enter route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0 to add the multicast route. If you do this, you will need to stop and restart your slpd daemon.
   
   
5. Verify that NTP is working properly by entering ntpq -p at the shell prompt. If time isn't synchronized properly, follow the steps presented earlier in this chapter to resync.
   
   
6. Verify that SLP is working properly by entering slptool findscopes at the shell prompt. The utility should display the CLEScope scope. If you don't see it, make sure your slp.conf file is configured according to the instructions in Lab Exercise 5.1 and that the slpd daemon is running.
   
   
7. Download the NNLS 1.0 Evaluation ISO image by completing the following steps:
   
   

   1. On your Linux server, open Mozilla and browse to http://www.novell.com/products/linuxservices/.
      
      
   2. In the Nterprise Linux Services home page, click the Download the Eval link.
      
      
   3. Under Nterprise Linux Services, click the Click Here to Download link.
      
      
   4. In the NNLS Download page, click the Download Now link.
      
      
   5. If you already have a Novell.com profile, enter your username and password and then click Login .
      
      
   6. If you don't have a Novell.com profile, select Create a Profile and then follow the prompts to create your own personal profile.
      
      
   7. Next to Novell_Nterprise_Linux_Services_1.0.iso select Download .
      
      
   8. Save the file to /tmp .
      
      
   9. Wait while the download completes.
      
      
8. When the first download set is complete, download your NICI file by completing the following:
   
   

   1. In your browser window, navigate to http://www.novell.com/products/edirectory/customer_license.htm.

   2. In the Customer License screen, read the license agreement and then click I Accept .

   3. Click the Request a Novell eDirectory 8.7.x 250,000 User (128 Bit) Encryption License link.

   4. Fill out the Contact Information, Questionnaire, and Privacy/Permission forms and then click Submit . Your evaluation license will be sent to your email address.

   5. Open the email message and save the .nfk and the .nlf files you were sent to a floppy disk. Record the names of your files for use during installation.

9. Check your hosts file by completing the following:
   
   

   1. At your shell prompt, enter vi /etc/hosts .

   2. Verify that the hostname of your server (CLE1) is not included anywhere in the localhost record.

   3. Verify that a record exists for your server that includes its IP address, its fully qualified hostname (domain name ), and its short hostname (alias).

   Compare your hosts file with the hosts file displayed in Figure 5.13.
   
   
10. Verify that your server has an active connection to the Internet.
    
    
11. Configure DNS on your server by completing the following steps:
    
    

    Warning

    To complete later lab exercises with NetMail, you must have a DNS server configured to service the CLE.com zone with an A record for CLE1.CLE.com that resolves to your server's IP address.

    If you have a very kind DNS administrator in your organization, you could have him or her configure this zone for you and skip this step. If not, you'll need to set up your own DNS server. Configuring the named daemon, which was automatically installed on your server, does this.

    1. Open a terminal session.

    2. Change to your root user account by entering su - and supplying a password of novell .

    3. On your server, enter vi /etc/named.conf .

    4. Scroll to the bottom of the file. You should see a line that reads # You can insert further zone records .... Place your cursor at the beginning of the line following this line of text.

    5. Press Ins .

    6. Enter the following text:

       
       

        zone "cle.com" in {     type master;     file "named.hosts"; }; 

       
       

       
       

    7. Press Esc .

    8. Enter :exit .

    9. Enter vi /var/named/named.hosts . This will create a new text file called named.hosts in the /var/named directory.

    10. Press Ins .

    11. Enter the following text:

        
        

         ; Zone file for CLE zone ; ; The full zone file ; $TTL 3D @    IN  SOA     CLE1.CLE.com. admin.CLE.com. (                   200302151       ; serial  #                   8H               ; refresh, seconds                   2H               ; retry, seconds                   4W               ; expire, seconds                   1D )             ; minimum, seconds ;              NS  CLE1              ; name server localhost   A   127.0.0.1 CLE1          A  your_server's_IP_address  ; 

        
        

        
        

        Warning

        Be sure to press Enter and leave a blank line after the last line in the file!

    12. Press Esc .

    13. Enter :exit .

    14. Start the named daemon by entering /etc/init.d/named start .

    15. Configure the named daemon to automatically start by entering chkconfig named 345 at the shell prompt.

    16. Check your messages file for named startup errors by entering tail /var/log/messages . Ensure there were no errors encountered during startup. Resolve any errors reported .

    17. Run YaST.

    18. Select Network/Basic , Network Card Configuration .

    19. Under Already Configured Devices, select Change .

    20. Click Edit .

    21. Select Host Name and Name Server .

    22. If presented with a resolver configuration file error, click Modify .

    23. In the Name Server 1 field, enter your server's IP address.

    24. In the Domain Search 1 field, enter cle.com .

    25. Select Next , Next , Finish .

    26. Click Close .

        aa. Test your DNS server by entering nslookup .

        bb. At the prompt, enter cle1.cle.com . Your DNS server should resolve this name to your server's IP address.

        cc. At the prompt, enter www.novell.com. Your DNS server should resolve this name to Novell's web server IP address.

        dd. Enter exit .

12. Mount your ISO image and your floppy disk by completing the following steps:
    
    

    1. At the shell prompt, make a directory for mounting ISO images by entering mkdir /media/iso .
       
       
    2. At the shell prompt, enter the following command:
       
       

       
       

        mount -o loop /tmp/ Novell_Nterprise_Linux_Services_1.0.iso /media/iso 

       
       

       
       
    3. Verify that the image mounted properly by entering cd /media/iso; then enter ls . You should see the NNLS installation files, as shown in Figure 5.1.
       
       
    4. Insert your NICI disk in the server's floppy disk drive.
       
       
    5. At the shell prompt, enter mount -t vfat /dev/fd0/media/floppy .
       
       

With that, your system is now ready for an NNLS installation. Let's do that in Lab Exercise 5.3.