Mastering Red Hat Linux 9 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Preparing an FTP Server

In this section, you’ll learn how to configure an FTP server with the Red Hat installation files from the CDs. You’ll also learn how to connect to the same FTP server after Red Hat Linux is installed for the RPM packages that you may need in the future.

We assume that you already have a Linux or Unix computer, with the appropriate FTP services installed. On Red Hat Linux, that includes the vsftpd-* or (for older versions of Red Hat Linux) wu-ftpd-* and anonftp-* RPM packages. We don’t delve into the details of how FTP servers are configured in this chapter; to learn more about that process, read Copying Files

The first step is to set up a directory with the Red Hat Linux installation files. You’ll need a /RedHat directory, with base and RPMS subdirectories. Copy the files in the /RedHat/base directory from the first Red Hat installation CD. Then, copy the RPM packages from all three installation CDs to the /RedHat/RPMS directory.

This is a fairly easy process:

Find room for the Red Hat installation files, preferably associated with the /var directory. You’ll need a partition with nearly 2GB of space.

Create a separate directory. Make sure it’s in a partition with sufficient space. For more information on managing partitions, see Chapter 07. For the purpose of this exercise, I’ve named the directory /var/ftp/pub/inst.

# mkdir /var/ftp/pub/inst

Mount the first Red Hat Linux 9 installation CD:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Copy the applicable files from the CD:

# cp -ar /mnt/cdrom/RedHat /var/ftp/pub/inst

Unmount the first installation CD. Mount the second Red Hat installation CD. Copy the applicable files from that CD:

# umount /mnt/cdrom
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cp -ar /mnt/cdrom/RedHat /var/ftp/pub/inst

Repeat step 5 with the third Red Hat installation CD:

# umount /mnt/cdrom
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cp -ar /mnt/cdrom/RedHat /var/ftp/pub/inst

Now you’re ready with a Red Hat Linux installation source.

Unlike with NFS or a hard disk–based installation, you can’t use an FTP server to install Red Hat Linux from .iso files.

Sharing Directories

If you’ve installed the FTP server packages on your computer, you can now share the associated directory. By default, standard files are stored in /var/ftp/pub. Assuming you used the directories cited in the previous section, all you need to cite during the Red Hat Linux installation process is the /inst directory.

The process is simpler than for NFS. Just make sure the FTP server is started with the command

# service vsftpd start

and then check to see if you get the appropriate directories after logging into that FTP server.

Once you’ve created the share, you’ll be able to download individual Red Hat RPM packages from the FTP server. For more information, see Chapter 10.

As with the other servers, make sure that a firewall on the local computer isn’t blocking access to your web server. The easiest way to do this is to “flush” the current rules in your firewall with the following command:

# iptables -F

If you have a version of Linux with a version 2.2.x kernel, you may need to use the ipchains -F command.

Now you’ve set up a directory with Red Hat Linux installation files, and have shared it using an FTP server.

Installation Parameters

To use the FTP directory that you’ve configured, you’ll need two things: the address of the FTP server computer and the location of the /RedHat directory. The address of the FTP server could be a computer name, such as Webserver, or a fully qualified domain name, such as Chapter 20. To summarize, once you’ve set up shared directories on a running FTP server, you need the following bits of information during the installation process:

The IP address of the FTP server If you have a working DNS server on your network, you could substitute the computer name or fully qualified domain name of the server.

The location of the /RedHat directory Based on the actions taken in the previous section, that is /pub/inst.

You’ll get a chance to see how this works in the section “Text Mode: Step by Step.”