It is now January 1999. I have brought up Redhat 5.2, kernel 2.0.36, and configured it as my main gateway machine. I am still working on the configuration, which will include a firewall, a higher speed connection to the internet, Apache with SSL, and server-side Java. I will publish the new configuration notes later (hopefully by end of February).

Note, the installation of Red Hat 5.2 went very smoothly. X worked immediately for a Diamond Stealth 3D-2000 video card (S3 vIRGE) and a NEC 5FG Monitor. Netscape 4.07 comes preinstalled and works well, both the Navigator and Mail (IMAP4). I tend to run both Linux and Windows, using X-Win32 as an X server on Windows. In this way, I can run applications (such as Netscape, GNU chess, WordPerfect, etc.) on Linux but display them on Windows. This solves a current problem with ugly fonts in X on Linux, since the X windows appear on the Windows machine and look very nice. You get the robustness and performance of Linux along with the more highly tuned fonts of Windows. I expect to use this work around to ugly X fonts on Linux for a year or so, awaiting the development of prettier X fonts in Linux.

Sections of this document:

Brief historical notes
Overview of (previously) configured hardware and software
Configuration notes
Configuration files

For software, the main things I configure are tcp/ip for oceanpark.com, CSLIP, firewalled inetd daemons, the Apache web server, Samba, and some in-house software. I use Samba to provide file service to NT and Windows 95 boxes on my LAN. If you're curious, I use NT Server 4.0 as my primary workstation, as an SQL Server database server, and an ASP Web server. Using Linux as the file server even for NT is very convenient. It enables me to keep my files in one place so that I can easily get to them from the net via telnetting in to Linux, it allows sharing of mail and html files in Linux and NT, etc. I run an X-Server on NT (X-Win32 by http://www.starnet.com) and have emacs both on Linux and on NT.

1. Install Red Hat Linux
   • Insert the installation floppy and follow the instructions, but note the following...
   • For the mouse, I use a PS/2 port on the motherboard and attach a three button Logitech mouse. I configure the mouse by invoking /usr/sbin/mouseconfig
   • For X, I skipped this step during the initial install (but see below).
   • I don't use and don't want to use the Metro X-server. I have had the XFree86 server running and the mouse running back in Red Hat 4.0 so I'll modify these notes when I get around to making them both work in 4.x, x>1.
   • For Default Gateway, I specify 198.211.65.1, which is oceanpark.com itself.
   • I set the hardware clock to GMT, (requires a BIOS adjustment of the clock).
   • At the disk partitionning step, do EDIT...
     • You are dropped into fdisk, a cryptic experience for the uninitiated.
     • Use the 'm' command to see what you can do from fdisk.
     • Create primary partitions only, using the 'n' command.
     • Partition 1 is +1000M size
     • Partition 2 is +100M in size
     • Partition 3 is specified to take the remaining cylinders
     • Use the 't' command to make partition 2 be type 82 (Linux swap)
     • Use the 'a' command to make partition 1 be Active (what to boot from)
     • Use 'p' to show the current partitions and be happy with what you see.
     • Use 'd' to get rid of partitions you screwed up on and start over if need be.
     • Use 'q' to bail on fdisk back to Redhat, where you can do EDIT again and start over.
     • Exit fdisk via the 'w' command, putting you back in the Red Hat world.
   • Specify to use /dev/hda1 as /
   • Specify to use /dev/hda3 as /home
   • Choose 'install everything' for what packages to install.
   • Wait for fifteen minutes (on the Cyrix P166) for the install to complete.
   • Red Hat is now installed.
2. Reboot
3. Mount the old partitions from the old hard drive which is physically installed in the machine until we are sure we don't need it anymore and can put it on ice. I do this as follows, more or less...
   • login as root
   • cd /
   • mkdir home1
   • mkdir oldroot
   • mount <device of old home partition> oldhome
   • mount <device of old root partition> oldroot
   • use these mounts in the following steps to copy over old config files
   • (In what follows, whenever a file is overwritten, mv the old one to a file having the same name with the suffix .dist (for distribution) or whatever.)
4. Run /usr/sbin/makewhatis. This causes apropos (man -k) to work.
5. Configure users
   • cp /oldroot/etc/passwd /etc/passwd
   • cp -arf oldhome/* /home
   • cp /oldroot/etc/group /etc/group
   • edit /home and /etc/passwd if you want to make some changes
   • Note, adduser is a command you can use to add a new user
6. Configure other files
   • cp -arf /oldroot/usr/local/* /usr/local
   • copy some information from /oldroot/var/log/ to /var/log/
7. Configure CSLIP
   • I found that until I had CSLIP working and was connected to the net, I had problems making tcp/ip connections just over my LAN, so I do this part early in the config.
   • I am unable to get the built-in SLIP or PPP configuration tools to work, so I run my own CSLIP script, dipwatch, a Perl script which I modify to use the correct bash path, #!/bin/bash and correct dip path, /usr/sbin/dip.
   • Add call to dipwatch to /etc/rc.d/rc.local
   • Reboot and verify the full internet connectivity occurs and that it is possible to telnet in from Windows boxes on the LAN.
8. Configure SMTP
   • Edit /etc/sendmail.cf -- change Cwlocalhost to Cwoceanpark.com
   • Do not put a space character after the w in Cw.
   • Do not make any other change to sendmail.cf
   • Reboot and verify that mail can be sent and received via /bin/mail, POP clients, etc.
9. Configure TCP/IP access restrictions
   • Edit /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow to secure what services are offered to what hosts. I provide web service to the world but only permit a small number of known hosts to use other services.
   • Edit /etc/inetd.conf and comment out lines containing gopher, in.rshd, and in.rlogind
   • telnet oceanpark.com smtp
     • verify that wiz, debug, and kill commands are not recognized
     • Refer to Garfinkel and Spafford's book, Practical UNIX and Internet Security
10. Configure Web server
    • cp -arf /oldhome/httpd/* /home/httpd
11. Configure Samba
    • In /etc/smb.conf, I add the sections, for reasons I forget...
      [test]
      path = /home
      valid users = allard
      public = yes
      writeable = yes
      [global]
      security = SHARE
      hosts allow = foo.oceanpark.com, @Borg
      browseable = Yes
      comment = Hacking Samba
      [homes]
      browseable = no
      read only = no
      create mode = 0750
    • Then do /usr/sbin/smbd stop; /usr/sbin/smbd start
12. Configure start-up and cron facilities, such as daily backup processing.
13. Configure X
    • I ran without an X server on my Linux machine for the past few months, preferring to simply run UNIX programs on the server but have them display to an X server running on one of my Windows machines. I am now in the process of moving more of my desktop to Linux so I figured I should configure an X server directly on Linux. To do so, I logged in to a command screen as root and invoked /usr/X11R6/bin/configX. Please refer to the script of my configX session.
    • To have the X man pages installed, make your manpath include /usr/X11R6/man. See /etc/profile.
    • To make the Meta key work in place of the escape key in Emacs, modify /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc to contain: xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L"
    • One annoying thing is that the default configX sets you up with so-called virtual screens. I hate virtual screens. Last time I configured X, I had to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to get rid of that feature. The online documentation did not use the same file names that the installation created and there seemed to be about five redundant links to everything which added to the confusion. For some reason, this time I was less confused. The trick to getting rid of virtual screens for me was to simply edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and in every Screen Section, get rid of anything which is not "1024x768", since I run at 1024x768.
    • These notes on configing X are obviously not complete. I hope to improve them at some point in the future.
    • man XF86Config and man xmodmap provide assitance.