SLAC Computing UNIX at SLAC Linux at SLAC |
Updated: 09 Nov 2011 |
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There are several steps to setting up a fully-integrated Red Hat EnterpriseLinux 6 (RHEL6) system at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory:Please note: These are not complete Red Hat EnterpriseLinux install instructions; go to the Red Hat Web site for more complete information.
This procedure does a 'clean install', not an upgrade. If youfollow OCIO recommendations against storing permanent data on aworkstation's system disk, this should not be a problem. If you dohave some data you want to preserve on this disk, but it is all storedin a non-system partition, e.g., /u1, you might be OK, providing yoursystem partitions are large enough to accommodate RHEL6 withsufficient room for future updates (seeDisk Partitions, below). Otherwise, it isyour responsibility to backup your data before beginning theinstallation. If you must restore it to a local filesystem after theinstallation, we strongly urge you to buy a second disk and keeppermanent data off the system disk.
You may want to work next to a machine with a web browser and access theRed Hat installation manual from the documentation area of the Red Hat web site.
To make a bootable CDROM for installing RHEL6, you will need to burnan ISO 9660 image file onto CD-R (or CD-RW) media.On Linux, you can use an application likeXcdroast (requires X Windows)orcdrecord(a command-line tool). On a RHEL5 desktop system, double clicking on a fileending in '.iso' will bring up a 'Write to Disk' dialog box which can be usedto burn a copy of the file to a CD-R disk.Mac OSX can successfully create bootable CDROMs using the CDROM burning utility.
To create an installation boot CDROM under Linux, using the cdrecord utility:
Find the ISO 9660 disc image for an installation boot CDROM for your architecture and the current RHEL6 Update level:
for 64-bitfor 32-bit
If you haven't burned any CDROMs before, it's a good idea to run some tests first by adding the '-dummy' option to the cdrecord command line.
The ISO image for RHEL6.1 includes a 'Rescue' option.
Stick the CDROM in the drive and reboot your machine.
If your machine ignores the CDROM at boot time, and simply rebootsthe existing system on the hard disk, there is most likely aproblem with the boot order in the BIOS. You can usually getinto the BIOS by pressing a function key (usually F2) early inthe boot process. The various BIOS screens vary quite a bit,even within a single vendor's products. However, there isusually a place where you can specify the order in which the BIOSshould look for a bootable device. You should make sure it looksat the CDROM drive before the hard disk.
At the introductory, 'Welcome to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1!' menu, choose 'Install or upgradean existing system'. Other possible choices include 'Install system with basicvideo driver', 'Rescue installed system', 'Boot from local drive' , or a'Memory test.'
N.B. If your initial installation attempt fails with a wonky video display,retry with the 'basic video driver'.
N.B. There may be some variations in the order of thescreens in the installation program depending on your exact hardwareconfiguration and/or the choices you make, so it's probably a good idea toread through the rest of this section before proceeding.
It will take a minute or two to load. Choose 'Skip' to skip the media test.
Next, after questions regarding 'Language' and 'Keyboard' choice, the installationproceeds to 'Installation Method.'
In the 'Installation Method' screen, choose NFS directory to insure thatthe latest SLAC-recommended kernel and RPMs are installed. If you installfrom a CDROM, you may need to upgrade the kernel after installation inorder to comply with SLAC security requirements.
Next, you will be asked to configure TCP/IP.
Under Enable IPv4 support Uncheck Use dynamic IP configurationby checking the Manual Configuration. Uncheck Enable IPv6support. (Movement and select directions are at the bottom of the screen).
On the next screen 'Manual TCP/IP Configuration' enter the IP Address, Netmask,Default gateway and Primary nameserver information given toyou by your Desktop admin when you requested your node name and IP address.The primary nameserver is 134.79.110.8.
WARNING:Please be careful to enter this information accurately, because errors candisrupt the network.
Next you will enter NFS setup information. The NFS servername is lnxinstall.slac.stanford.edu
and the Red Hat directoriesare:
/gpfs/slac/staas/fs1/r/g.scs.redhat/RedHat/RHEL6/6u4/x86_64
./gpfs/slac/staas/fs1/r/vol/vol1/g.scs.redhat/RedHat/RHEL6/6u4/i386
.If the directory can't be mounted, try using the fully qualified hostname (including .slac.stanford.edu) like this: lnxinstall.slac.stanford.edu
. You could also try using the IP address by doing a 'nslookup' or 'host' command to find the current IP address of lnxinstall.
After the splash RHEL6 screen, the next questions are:
root
password and DON'T FORGET IT! SLAC's post-installation tool taylor
will override this password.The default partitioning scheme used by the the other options is not suitable for use in the SLAC environment.
The table below shows suggested partitioning schemes for two different sizedisks, representing typical sizes of disks available on older hardware stillin service here at SLAC. Newer systems usually have substantially largersystem disks.
Make sure to give Linux at least a 9 GB root partition. If your root partition is less than about 9 GB, you should omit installingsome of the software package groups recommended below, in order to allowroom for future upgrades and security patches. Similarly, if you installmore package groups than suggested below, you will probably need a largerroot partition -- perhaps 10-12 GB if you install nearly everything. Smallroot partitions can make it difficult or impossible to install requiredsecurity patches later on. Systems that cannot apply required securitypatches in a timely fashion may be denied access to the SLACnetwork. If possible the root partion should be at least 20 GBfor modern machines with 100 GB and larger disks.
You should also create a swap partition at least as large as the memory(twice the main memory is a good rule of thumb for the size of the swappartition).
If there is sufficient space, we recommend that you allocate an/scswork
partition of 1 GB, to be reserved for the exclusiveuse of OCIO. Use the rest for scratch space; for example, you might want tocreate a larger /tmp
or add a separate /scratch
directory. Note that older files in /tmp
are periodicallyremoved but files in /scratch
will remain until removed by youunless the system is re-installed.
Always choose to format your Linux partitions. Use the new, ext4 filesystemtype on all partitions except swap and /usr/vice/cache/cache.. (In earlierversions of AFS, /usr/vice/cache needed the ext2 filesystem, but ext4 isnow compatible with the AFS cache). ext4 is a journaling filesystem andwill permit much faster recovery following crashes.
WARNING! You should not allocateany partitions on the system disk for permanent data. Because of the largesizes of currently available disks, you may be strongly tempted to ignorethis warning. However, it is very risky to do so, because:
The best way to make use of extra space on your system disk is to allocate alarge /tmp or /scratch partition. If you need additional permanent space,please contact unix-admin@slac.stanford.edu; we will do our best to help youacquire reliable, backed-up storage at a reasonable cost.If you ignore this warning, it will be your responsibility to saveand restore your data the next time your system needs to bere-installed.
Note that partition names and numbers, and the order of the partitions, areassigned automatically. Also, the actual sizes ofallocated partitions may vary a little bit from what you request in theGUI interface. This may make it difficult to allocate every last blockon the disk. The OCIO recommendation is to use LVMs and to leave extra roomwhich can be used later.
Suggested partition schemes for typical hard disks:Partition Mount Point | Partition Type | Partition Size | |
---|---|---|---|
12 GB disk | +18 GB or larger disk | ||
/ | ext4 | 9 GB | 12 GB |
swap | swap | 1 x memory or at least 512 MB | 2 x memory or at least 1 GB |
/var | ext4 | 512 MB | 4 GB |
/usr/vice/cache | ext4 | 512 MB | 2 GB |
/tmp | ext4 | 512 MB | 4 GB |
/scswork | ext4 | omit | 1 GB |
/scratch (or extra /tmp space) | ext4 | omit | remainder |
When you begin, you'll have a screen that appears this way:
When you are done, You'll have a configuration something like this:There will be two dialog boxes confirming you want to reformat the disk.
Accept the defaults for the other options on this screen.
As stated by the installer, 'The default installation of Red Hat EnterpriseLinux is a desktop install.' Other choices include, 'Minimal Desktop','WebDevlopment Workstation', 'Software Devlopment Workstation', and'Minimal'Please do not install the 'Web Development Workstation' unless you really know what you are doing andokay it with OCIO first.
Don't worry too much about getting every package you might ever want -- youcan always add additional packages later.
After this, the installationwill begin. It may take 15 minutes to over an hour to install the packagesdepending on the speed of your machine and network.Once complete, you'll be presentedwith a 'Congratulations' screen. NOTE you'll want to eject yourboot CDROM prior to rebooting so you don't boot back to the boot iso image.
The final installation screen has a 'reboot' bottom on the right corner.Again, makesure to remove any CDROM left in the drive from the initial boot of theinstallation program.
The first time you boot your newly-installed system in the graphicalrun level (run level 5) the Red Hat Welcome screens mayautomatically run.
If you are planning to taylor your system you can skip most or all ofthese steps -- they are either unneeded or will be handled by taylor.
The welcome screens are intended for stand-alone systems andguides you through a number of first time system administration taskssuch as:
You'll need to agree to the License agreement.
If running Taylor, then choose 'no'. (You'll need to confirm 'No Thanks'.)
In particular, avoid creating a local account with the same username as your SLAC UNIX account or registering personally with RHN. If you plan to taylor the system, you do not need to create a local account. Please do not. For the Create User screen 'Forward' button with no additions or adjustments. You'll need to confirm you want to continue without a user account.
Accept the defaults.
Accept the defaults. Do not choose to reboot to enable kdumps.
On the next screen, you'll click on 'Other..' enter 'root' as the user andpassword you picked earlier. You'll see messages related to being logged inas root, and how it's not ideal, but this okay for this one time. You'll alsosee missing entitlements messages.
WARNING: This is not (yet) for laptop users.
Taylor is the tool used by OCIO for administering the very large number ofUNIX (including Linux) systems for which we are responsible. It can be runafter the Red Hat installation program to automatically configure your newsystem to be integrated into the SLAC environment. It normally installs acronjob which will maintain your system automatically.
Some of the things Taylor does include:
/usr/local
to point to SLAC AFS /usr/local
for Linux.For additional information,see the Taylor Web page.
Taylor uses a configuration file, /etc/taylor.opts
, to controlits actions. If you don't have this file the first time you run Taylor, itwill install one with a reasonable set of defaults. However, you may wantto set some of these options before you run Taylor the first time, since theroot
password you set during installation will otherwise beoverridden at this point.
If your machine was previously taylored, you will most likely want torestore most or all of the options from your old taylor.opts
file (you did print a copy beforebeginning, right?).If your machine is connected to anon-autonegotiating (fixed speed) 100 MB/s port, it isparticularly important to include the option,ethernet=100mb
.If you are not sure, omit this option or check with net-admin or your DesktopAdmin.
If your machine has not been previously taylored, look in /afs/slac/package/taylor/taylor.opts for a sampletaylor.opts
file. In particular, this file includes commentedout examples examples showing how to:
For a more complete list of options, do man taylor.opts
.
After running Taylor the first time, if you subsequently need an optionchanged and can no longer modify /etc/taylor.opts
yourself,contact one of your Linux Desktop Support people or send mail to unix-admin
.
First get to a terminal prompt from the GUI by selecting from the top leftof the menu bar 'Applications',then 'Systems Tools' and lastly 'Terminal'.
To install and run Taylor, execute the following command:
You will be asked whether to use the version of /usr/local
maintained by OCIO or set up a private /usr/local. We highlyrecommend that you use the central one.
Taylor will probably take several minutes to complete its work. If there isan error and you can see how to fix the problem, it is safe to reruntaylor
afterward. If you have an error you cannot understandor fix, send email to unix-admin
to request help. If possible, paste the errormessages from Taylor into the email.
If you receive your email via the UNIX mail spool rather than SLAC'sExchange server, you'll need access to/nfs/mailspool/mail/<your_UID>
. Some users may also wantto access other central NFS file servers from their Linux workstations.Access to NFS is not automatic; for security reasons you must submit arequest to OCIO for permission to mount our central servers. There is asimple NFS Accessform for this purpose if you do not need any superuser privileges on themachine. If you also need privileges, see the next section.
If you need superuser privileges (i.e., the root
passwordand/or sudo ALL
) on your machine, you will need to carefullyread the Superuser/NFSPrivileges page, then fill out and submit the form you'll findthere. If you also need NFS access, you must request it via this same form.
SLAC maintains a mirror of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 6 distribution ona RedHat Linux Satellite Server.
The yum command is a program that can look at a directory or at an ftp orhttp site and determine if there are updates to any of your packages there.If it finds them, it can also install them. Taylor installs yum and uses itto apply required security updates. In addition, Taylor configures yum sothat you or your system admin can use it to install any necessary bug fixRPMs to bring your system up to the latest OCIO-recommended Red Hat updatelevel. The command to do this is simply,To find out what yum would do without actually doing it, use thecommand, sudo yum check-update
.
Use the GUI program: to find additional RPMSthat you might want to install (the program is from the gnome-packagekit RPM).You can also find this program in Gnome under the System menu, then underthe Adminstration menu, then 'Add/Remove Software'.
There are some known issues with RHEL6. Please see the RHEL6 Releasenotes for other information:
Release Notes
If one installs with the ancient 6u1 images, one must run this command to fix the /etc/redhat-release text on the node:
/u/sf/ksa/bin/redhat-release
Failure to do that will cause your system to be flagged as a system that needs patching, even if it is getting all the required patches it needs to be cyber secure.
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