Technofunction

This post is the second half of my earlier post of installing and configuring Vmware to install CentOS/RedHat Linux . This post is also relevant if you need basic configuration. By basic we means using 3 options to create default partition and not using the custom partition options during installation. So considering that either you have already installed and configured Vmware to run Linux or You are installing Linux on a system. We begin with the installation.

Once you have successfully installed vmware you would see your virtual machine in the left column as shown below in the screenshot with virtual machine name is Virtual Machine Linux OS. Select it and turn it on by selecting power on on right side column.

Next select the console tab.

You will see the black console screen. This might give you an error as it cant find the plugin needed by Vmware. Simply click on the Install Plug-in option so that it install the plugin for you. Once initiated it will install the plug-in as you can see in the screen-shot below

Next you will see the Console window.

Note:- See that you have already inserted the CentOS/RedHat Linux Dvd/Cd in the Dvd/Cd drive to start the installation once your virtual machine is started.

Simply click anywhere to start the virtual machine and start with CentOS/RedHat installation.

Click Next to start the installation.

Select your desired Language here. In Our Case its English select it and click next

Select the Keyboard type that matches yours. In our case is U.S. English select it and click Next

Now this screen is important as it is asking you to select the partition in here. You have 3 default choices i.e Remove all partition and create defaults this will remove all the partitions on your drive and create Linux partition. Second is that it will create the partition on the free space on your drive remember you must have free space on your drive to use this option. Third one is to remove all previous Linux partitions and create new. And fourth is create a custom layout for your partition here you yourself specify the size for each partition(/, /boot, /home etc).

Since we have created a new virtual machine here so we will go with remove all partition and create default. Since there are no data on this virtual machine previously. With default partition Linux uses LVM(Logic Volume Manager) to manage your hard disk and partitions. Select the review and modify Layout option at the end and click next.

This screen shows you all the partition that will be created for Linux. As you can see LogVol01 is a swap partition(virtual memory used by Linux to increase the system performance) and LogVol02 shows (/) i.e. root partition. This type of installation uses (LVM Logic Volume Manager) to manage your hard disk. You can edit  anymore partition if you need in here. Once done click next to continue.

The Linux uses GRUB (Grand Unified Boot Loader) for booting which can be very advantageous incase you want to install Linux and windows on same server. Since you dont have to change anything here click next to continue.

Here you can configure the network that your machine will use. If you have dynamic Ip than Linux will show you. You can even edit host and domain name here which points to localhost.localdomain. If you have static ip than you can enter gateway DNS details on here. Linux can set upto three DNS servers to resolve the domain address.  You need to enter gateway and DNS only if you have Static-ip. click next to continue.

Select the region were your server is located Linux will set the Time accordingly. Select region with the help of the mouse by scrolling over the map. Click next to continue.

Here you need to enter the root password. Remember root is the “superuser” and has all the privileges in Linux. So it is recommended to use a good combination of password which is hard to crack and must be combination of small and upper case letters and numbers. Enter the root password and click next to continue.

Here you can set up the packages that you need. Linux provides you with a large number of packages which can be selected during install and can also be configured later. Linux also provides you with two desktop environment i.e. “Gnome” and “Kde”. Apart from that Red-hat also ships a large number of servers which needs to be configured manually apart from that large number of software’s for developers and O.S utilities are also provided. Select the relevant packages for additional packages select Customize now and click next.

Select all the packages here. Remember although you can select which servers you want in here but you need to configure them for utilization. Once selected click next to continue.

Next Linux checks for dependencies and lets you know which all cds/Dvds would be needed during the installation.

That is it you are done now click next to begin with the installation.

Once installed it will ask you to reboot the system simply click reboot to start the Linux.

You need to configure just a little more for making Linux more secure. So click next to continue.

Red Hat Linux/ CentOs is provided with a built in firewall for blocking outside world from gaining access to your server. Although you can configure which services should not be restricted by Firewall. Select the services that you don’t want firewall to block. If you not familiar or not sure leave it to default it can be configured later also. Click next to continue.

RedHat/CentOS enforces SELinux(Secure Enterprise Linux) to enhance the security of Linux. Click forward to continue.

You can configure settings for kdump here. It enables you to gather in case the kernel crash but consumes space on your hard disk. Just click forward to continue.

You can set the date and time in here. You can even set Network Time Protocol. Once done click forward to continue.

You can create a user for Linux in here if you like. Its recommended not to login in Linux as root as root has much more permissions so it is good to create a user here. But yes you can enter as root and than create user also. So simply fill in the details and click forward to continue.

Here you can configure and check your sound card. Once checked click forward to continue.

If you have anymore Cd/Dvd of softwares you can install it now. If not, than click next to continue.

that is it, you are done simply enter the user and password and start using Linux.

Written by: Ankit on March 30, 2010.