Redhat Linux Installation

This is Red Hat 6 RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) installation guide, step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots. Current version of Red Hat 6 is Beta, but also this RHEL 6 Beta version looks very stable and good OS, so that’s why I decided to write this RHEL 6 Installation guide.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Beta is available on the following architectures:

• i386
• AMD64/Intel64
• System z
• IBM Power (64-bit)

Download Red Hat 6 Beta DVD images here.

Some of the many improvements and new features that are included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

• Power management – tickless kernel and improvements through the application stack to reduce wakeups, power consumption measurement by Powertop, Power Management (ASPM, ALPM), and adaptive system tuning by Tuned, all enhance more efficient system power usage.
• Next generation networking – comprehensive IPv6 support (NFS 4, CIFS, mobile support [RFC 3775], ISATAP support), FCoE, iSCSI, and a new and improved mac 802.11 wireless stack.
• Scalable filesystems – ext4 file system provides support for larger file sizes and significantly reduces repair times over ext3. XFS® is a high-performance file system that supports extremely large files and is optimized for large data transfers.
• Virtualization – KVM includes performance improvements and new features, sVirt protects the guest and host from unauthorized access, SR-IOV and NPIV deliver high-performance virtual use of physical devices, and libvirt leverages kernel resource management functionality.
• Enterprise security enhancement – SELinux includes improved ease of use, application sandboxing, and significantly increased coverage of system services, while SSSD provides unified access to identity and authentication services as well as caching for off-line use.
• Development and runtime support – SystemTap improvements, ABRT is a new framework for simple collection and reporting of bug information, and improvements are made to GCC (version 4.4.3), glibc (version 2.11.1), and GDB (version 7.0.1).

On this guide I use Graphical Installer. There is also Kickstart automated installation method and Text-based Installer available. And I install this machine for Software Development Workstation and testing environment. So package selection is following: Desktop, Web server, Databases, Compiling tools, Java. Same method works also for servers, normal desktops and other setups, but of course different software selection. So let’s begin installation…

Burn Downloaded Image to DVD and Boot Computer Using Red Hat 6 Installation DVD

Check RHEL image MD5 sum and burn image to DVD with your favourite CD/DVD burner. And boot computer using Red Hat Installation DVD.

Red Hat 6 RHEL Installation

1. Select Install or upgrade an existing system option on Grub Menu

2. Choose a language

3. Choose a keyboard type

4. Choose a installation media

5. Skip DVD media test (or select media test, if you want to test installation media before installation)

6. Red Hat 6 graphical installer starts, select next

7. Accepct Pre-Release Installation

8. Select storage devices

9. Insert computer name

10. Select time zone

11. Enter a password for root user

12. Select type of installation

Read every options info carefully. And select encrypting if needed and option to review and modify partition layout.

13. Review partition layout

Modify if needed. Default setup with ext4 and LVM looks good for desktop machine.

14. Accept write changes to disc

15. Writing changes (creating partitions) to disc

16. Configure boot loader options

Select device to install bootloader and check/create boot loader operating system list.

17. Select softwares to install and enable repositories

This case we select Software Development Workstation and enable Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 Beta Repository and select Customize now.

18. Customize package selection

Select PHP and Web Server to installation.

Select MySQL and PostgreSQL Databases.

Select set of Development tools like Eclipse IDE.

19. Checking dependencies for installation

20. Starting installation process

21. Installing packages

22. Installation is complete

Click reboot computer and remove installation media.

Red Hat 6 RHEL Finishing Installation

23. Selecting RHEL 6 from grub

24. Booting Red Hat 6

25. Red Hat 6 Welcome screen

26. Create normal user

27. Setup date and time and keep up-to-date with NTP

28. Login Red Hat 6 Gnome Desktop

29. Red Hat (RHEL) 6 Gnome Desktop, empty and default look

Text Editors

Text Editors

Console Based Text Editors:

1.    Emacs

2.    Nano

3.    Vim/vi

Graphical (GUI) Editors:

1.    Gedit

2.    Gvim

3.    Sublime (have to install separately)

Now we are going to discuss about vi/vim editor.

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the VI editor distributed with most UNIX systems. It is a tool, the use of which you must be learned. Program is written by Bram Moolenaar et al.

Usage of vi/vim, it has three modes

1.    Command mode

2.    Insert Mode

3.    Ex-mode

Command mode: this mode is the default mode following things we can do

Yank/copy (yy)         -           copying the single line

(nyy)   n number of lines at a time you can copy.

p                                  -           Paste a content bellow the cursor

P                                 -           Paste content above the cursor

dd                                -           Delete a single line

ndd  n number of line delete yet a time

x                                  -           Deleting a single character

dw                               -           Deleting a single word

.                      -           redo

u                      -           Undo

J                      -           Joining the line

r                      -           Replace the character

Arrow Keys

h                      -           Left

j                       -           Down

k                      -           Up

l                       -           Right

Ctrl+d            -           Scroll Down

Ctrl+u            -           Scroll UP

Insert Mode: This mode is used to insert the text into the file

i           -           Inserting the content before the cursor position

I          -           it will insert the character starting of the line

a          -           it will insert the character of the cursor append

A         -           It will append the character from end of the line

O         -           It will insert a new line above the cursor

o          -           It will insert a new line below the cursor

s          -           Substitute the stream

EX-Mode:   Esc is used to change the mode. Press Escape key to enter EX-Mode

:w        -           save the modifications

:q         -           quit

:wq      -           save & quit

:w!       -           save forcefully

:q!        -           Quit forcefully

:set nu            -           setting the line numbers

:set nonu       -           Remove line numbers

:<number>    -           it will goes to particular line

:%s/find string name/replace string/g     - to replace the string group of lines

:r         -           reading the another file from here

:!<command>           -           command will execute from here

:r !date           -           output will save in current file

Linux Basic/Common commands

Linux Basic/Common commands

Command      Description                 

adduser           Add a new user                    

arch                  Print machine architecture                

awk                 Find and Replace text within file(s)              

bc                    An arbitrary precision calculator language                 

cal                    Display a calendar                  

cat                   Concatenate files and print on the standard output              

chdir                Change working directory                 

chgrp               Change the group ownership of files             

chkconfig        Tool for maintaining the /etc/rc[0-6].d directory hierarchy               

chmod             Change the access permissions of files and directories                    

chown             Change the user and group ownership of files                      

chroot              Change root directory           

cksum              Print CRC checksum and byte counts                      

clear                 Clear terminal screen             

cmp                 Compare two files                 

comm              Compare two sorted files line by line           

cp                    Copy one or more files to another location               

cron                 Daemon to execute scheduled commands                

crontab            Schedule a command to run at a later time               

csplit                Split a file into context-determined pieces               

cut                   Divide a file into several parts                       

date                 Display or change the date & time               

dc                    Desk Calculator                    

dd                    Data Dump - Convert and copy a file                      

df                    Display free disk space                     

diff                  Display the differences between two files               

diff3                Show differences among three files             

dir                    Briefly list directory contents           

dircolors          Colour setup for `ls'              

dirname           Convert a full pathname to just a path                      

du                    Estimate file space usage                  

echo                 Display message on screen                

ed                    A line-oriented text editor (edlin)                 

egrep               Search file(s) for lines that match an extended expression               

eject                 Eject CD-ROM                     

env                  Display, set, or remove environment variables                     

expand            Convert tabs to spaces                      

expr                 Evaluate expressions             

factor               Print prime factors                

false                 Do nothing, unsuccessfully               

fdformat          Low-level format a floppy disk                    

fdisk                Partition table manipulator for Linux           

fgrep                Search file(s) for lines that match a fixed string                   

find                 Search for files that meet a desired criteria              

fmt                  Reformat paragraph text                   

fold                 Wrap text to fit a specified width                

format             Format disks or tapes            

free                  Display memory usage                      

fsck                 Filesystem consistency check and repair                  

gawk               Find and Replace text within file(s)             

grep                 Search file(s) for lines that match a given pattern                

groups             Print group names a user is in           

gzip                 Compress or decompress named file(s)                    

head                Output the first part of file(s)           

hostname         Print or set system name                   

id                     Print user and group id's                   

info                  Help info                   

install               Copy files and set attributes              

join                  Join lines on a common field            

kill                   Stop a process from running             

less                  Display output one screen at a time              

ln                     Make links between files                  

locate               Find files                    

logname           Print current login name                    

lpc                   Line printer control program             

lpr                    Off line print             

lprm                 Remove jobs from the print queue                

ls                      List information about file(s)             

man                 Help manual              

mkdir               Create new folder(s)             

mkfifo             Make FIFOs (named pipes)              

mknod             Make block or character special files            

more                Display output one screen at a time              

mount              Mount a file system              

mv                   Move or rename files or directories               

nice                  Set the priority of a command or job            

nl                     Number lines and write files             

nohup              Run a command immune to hangups            

passwd            Modify a user password                   

paste                Merge lines of files               

pathchk           Check file name portability               

pr                     Convert text files for printing           

printcap           Printer capability database                

printenv           Print environment variables              

printf               Format and print data           

ps                     Process status            

pwd                 Print Working Directory                    

quota               Display disk usage and limits           

quotacheck      Scan a file system for disk usage                  

quotactl           Set disk quotas                       

ram                  ram disk device                     

rcp                   Copy files between two machines                

rm                    Remove files             

rmdir               Remove folder(s)                  

rpm                  Remote Package Manager                

rsync                Remote file copy (Synchronize file trees)                  

screen              Terminal window manager               

sdiff                Merge two files interactively            

sed                   Stream Editor            

select               Accept keyboard input                     

seq                   Print numeric sequences                    

shutdown        Shutdown or restart linux                 

sleep                Delay for a specified time                 

sort                  Sort text files            

split                 Split a file into fixed-size pieces                   

su                     Substitute user identity                     

sum                  Print a checksum for a file                

symlink            Make a new name for a file              

sync                 Synchronize data on disk with memory                   

tac                   Concatenate and write files in reverse                      

tail                   Output the last part of files               

tar                    Tape Archiver           

tee                   Redirect output to multiple files                   

test                  Evaluate a conditional expression                 

time                 Measure Program Resource Use                   

touch               Change file timestamps                     

top                   List processes running on the system            

traceroute        Trace Route to Host              

tr                      Translate, squeeze, and/or delete characters             

true                  Do nothing, successfully                   

tsort                 Topological sort                    

tty                    Print filename of terminal on stdin               

umount            Unmount a device                 

uname              Print system information                   

unexpand        Convert spaces to tabs                      

uniq                 Uniquify files            

units                Convert units from one scale to another                   

unshar              Unpack shell archive scripts              

useradd           Create new user account                   

usermod          Modify user account             

users                List users currently logged in            

uuencode         Encode a binary file               

uudecode        Decode a file created by uuencode              

vdir                  Verbosely list directory contents (`ls -l -b')               

watch              Execute/display a program periodically                    

wc                   Print byte, word, and line counts                  

whereis            Report all known instances of a command               

which              Locate a program file in the user's path                    

who                 Print all usernames currently logged in                     

whoami           Print the current user id and name (`id -un')             

xargs                Execute utility, passing constructed argument list(s)           

yes                   Print a string until interrupted