| Whether you are building a new network with OES Linux or installing it into an existing network, there are certain preparations you should make so that the installation goes as smoothly as possible. For those rare few of you creating a new network from the ground up, you have the opportunity to do all the little things that will make that network easier to manage down the road. Carefully consider your choices of cabling, addressing, naming schemes, access methods, and so forth. As the technical foundation of your network, these are very difficult to change midstream. Consider business factors such as potential company growth, mergers or acquisitions, reorganizations, and all the other business considerations of the twenty-first century. If you don't, your network might lack the flexibility necessary to adapt to strategic and structural changes in your organization. Unfortunately, the results of all this planning will then have to be weighed against the realities of your budget. There will be inevitable compromises, but this type of advanced planning will make sure those compromises don't come back to haunt you when the network is running. Server Hardware Planning Consider the following as you prepare your server hardware for the OES Linux installation: Processor speed The server must have an Intel Pentium II or AMD K7 processor or higher. Novell recommends Pentium III 700MHz or higher processors for multiprocessor servers. CD-ROM drive The server must have an ISO9660-compatible CD-ROM drive. Novell also recommends using a bootable CD-ROM drive compatible with the El Torito specification for booting directly from the CD. Server memory An OES Linux server must have a minimum of 512MB of system memory (RAM). Types of storage adapters and devices The OES Linux installation routine will properly detect most storage adapters and devices, but you should be familiar with the brand and type of your server's storage controllers (SCSI board, IDE controller, and so on), as well as the brand, type, capacity, and other specifications of the storage devices (such as hard disks, CD-ROM/DVD drives, tape drives) attached to those controllers. Size of hard disks OES Linux requires 2GB of unpartitioned space for a basic installation. Odds are that this disk space will seem awfully low if you plan on fully implementing OES Linux. Review your planned installation and ensure that the local disks or shared storage devices are sufficient. Network adapters Know the type of network adapters installed in the server. This should not be necessary, but if the installation routine has trouble identifying your adapters, having this information handy can help resolve the problem quickly. Keep in mind that drivers for unsupported hardware may only be available directly from your third-party vendor. To locate certified hardware, go to http://www.novell.com/partnerguide/. Display and input devices An SVGA or better video adapter and monitor along with a standard keyboard and mouse for direct console operation are recommended for use with OES Linux. However, with the powerful web-based administrative tools available with OES, it is possible to operate a "headless" server without any direct input or output devices. Server name If you haven't already done so, you should define a naming convention for your network resources, and determine an appropriate name for this server within those conventions.
Remember that installing a new network operating system is a significant undertaking. All hardware configurations should be tested in a lab environment before introducing them to your production network. Partition Planning By default, the OES Linux installation will create two partitions on your local disksone for the root filesystem and one for the swap partition. Depending on your configuration plans, you may want to customize this partitioning scheme. If you decide to modify your OES Linux server's main filesystem partitioning, consider the following commonly partitioned directories: / (root) directory The / directory is the storage location for all core SUSE Linux system files and products. As such, it is absolutely critical that the filesystem holding your / directory not run out of space. You should plan a minimum of 2GB for the partition used for /. In order to have room for the many additional products and services available with OES Linux, you may want to increase this to as much as 10GB. /var directory The /var directory is the storage location for variable length files, such as log file and databasesincluding eDirectory. By default, this directory is not partitioned out. However, if your system will be under a heavy load, or you expect a large eDirectory database, it may be a good idea to partition out /var. To help performance and isolate disk activity, you can also use a separate disk for this partition. /opt directory The /opt directory is the primary storage location for OES component files. This directory structure does not normally consume a large amount of space, but third-party applications also often rely on this directory. If you are planning on adding additional products to your server, you may want to consider creating a partition for this directory. /home directory The /home directory is the default storage location for all local users' home directories. If you are planning on using the Linux User Management (LUM) component, and allowing local logins to the OES Linux server, be sure to partition this directory out with enough space to meet your users' needs. Swap partition The swap partition is a critical component of any Linux server. With OES Linux, the default size of your swap partition will be based on a percentage of the amount of RAM in your server. If the server will be under a heavy load, this default size may not be sufficient. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to determine exactly how much swap file space you might need. The general rule of thumb for swap file space is approximately twice the amount of RAM in the server. If you find this number insufficient, additional swap partitions or swap files can be created after installation. Additional partitions and NSS volumes You will likely want to create additional storage locations beyond the default created during installation. These can either be Linux partitions or NSS volumes on local or remote disks. Each type of storage location can be mounted into the root filesystem and used for either network applications or data storage. NSS offers unique capabilities in this regard as NSS disk pools can span physical drives, and multiple volumes can reside inside each disk pool. To take advantage of these features, NSS pools and volumes must be created after the main OES Linux installation. Additional native Linux partitions can be created during the installation using the expert mode of the Disk Partitioner.
Remember that the root filesystem, mounted to /, should be reserved exclusively for system files and "nonvolatile" files that won't be changing a lot or growing significantly over time. Create as many other partitions or NSS pools and volumes as you need to support your applications and data, and avoid mixing it into your root filesystem. eDirectory Planning You have to supply some basic pieces of eDirectory information in order to complete the OES Linux installation: NOTE eDirectory design concepts are presented in Chapter 7, "Novell eDirectory Management." Additional eDirectory reference material is available in Appendix B, "eDirectory Reference Materials."
Tree name You need to know the name of the eDirectory tree into which the OES Linux server will be installed. Server location within the eDirectory tree Prior to installing the server, make sure you are familiar with the organization of your eDirectory tree. You need to specify the context within which the server will reside. This consists of the name of the Organization or Organizational Unit to which this server will belong. Administrator name and password If you are installing the first server in a new tree, an Admin account will be created and you will specify the Admin password. If you are installing the server into an existing eDirectory tree, you will need to provide the name, including context, and password of the existing Admin user. Server's time zone You need to specify the server's time zone and whether that time zone supports daylight savings time. Time synchronization OES Linux relies on the Network Time Protocol (NTP) daemon to provide time synchronization services. If you are adding OES Linux to an existing Novell network, be sure all servers are configured properly for synchronization using the same NTP source, or through a time synchronization structure that ensures NTP synchronization to the OES Linux server. Time synchronization across all servers in your environment is crucial for proper operation of eDirectory.
OES Linux includes Novell eDirectory v8.7.3. In order to support this version of eDirectory in your existing network, make sure you apply the latest eDirectory Service Packs on your existing servers. You can get the latest eDirectory service packs from Novell at http://support.novell.com. Network Preparation Before you install OES Linux into an existing Novell NetWare network, there are a few things you should do to make sure the network is ready for the introduction of OES Linux. Novell includes Deployment Manager with NetWare to help identify and automate these tasks. Although this tool was designed for use with NetWare, the tasks performed through Deployment Manager are applicable to OES Linux. Deployment Manager can be found as NWDEPLOY.EXE on the root of your NetWare or OES NetWare Operating System CDs. For information on using Deployment Manager, see the online OES NetWare documentation. |
