Fire Up your own Linux Server

The GRUB Boot Loader

If you have decided to go with a dual-boot install, you'll need to set up the GRUB boot loader. GRUB is a program that will let you select from a list of installed operating systems, then makes the computer start up the selected OS. As Figure 1.10 shows, it's pretty easy to set up. Note that you should set a boot loader password to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to the kernel's startup parameters.

Figure 1.10. Configuring GRUB.

Networking

After you've set up all of your partitions, you'll be offered the networking options shown in Figure 1.11, "Configuring Fedora's networking options.". Existing Ethernet cards within the machine will be denoted as ethn; if the machine has only one network card, it will be called eth0. The default configuration will be something like that displayed in Figure 1.11. The first network connection (usually eth0) will be made active, and will be automatically configured via DHCP. (NB. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) will be used to auto-detect your network settings to enable you to connect to the Internet, or to a private network.) If the machine is on an internal network, you'll probably be able to just leave this as the default. For a Web server that's connected directly to the Internet, you'll need to manually configure your static IP address and manually-configured gateway, DNS, and hostname. In this case, your ISP will be able to provide you with the IP address, gateway, and other details to use.

Figure 1.11. Configuring Fedora's networking options.

Clicking the Edit button in the Network Configuration screen will display the Edit Interface window shown in Figure 1.12. Here, you can make custom configuration adjustments such as giving the server a static IP address.

Figure 1.12. Manually configuring the Ethernet interface.

When the network device settings have been configured from the previous screen, you're free to configure the hostname, gateway and DNS settings. Figure 1.13 shows a network device configured primarily for internal use.

Figure 1.13. A manually configured network interface.

Network Security

The Fedora Core distribution—and many of the other major distributions of Linux—strive to make configuring your network security as easy as possible. By default, Fedora turns on a firewall that blocks all traffic coming in from the network. To customize the firewall, simply select the services you want to run on this machine; alternatively, you can simply disable the firewall, which will leave the machine open and vulnerable to hacker attacks. You can also choose to enable Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux), which can help to minimize any damage caused if hackers gain control of parts of the system. Note that SELinux should not be considered an alternative to a firewall—neither the firewall, nor SELinux, makes your system completely secure, so it's best to enable them both. For our purposes, you should only allow Remote Login and Web Server traffic through the firewall, and set Enable SELinux? to Active, as illustrated in Figure 1.14. Chapter 9, Server Security covers security in more detail.

Figure 1.14. Setting server security options.

Telnet and FTP Security

Though they're shown as options in the Fedora security configuration screens, both telnet and FTP are widely recognized as insecure protocols. SSH is a much more secure option than telnet for accessing remote machines, as SFTP is a more secure option than FTP for transferring files. If an FTP capability is required, it's recommended that it be set up on a different server that's isolated as much as possible from the rest of the network.

Setting the Time Zone

Fedora offers two options for setting the time zone for your server. You can roll the mouse over the metropolitan area that's closest to you, or you can select from an exhaustive list of cities. In either case, the chosen city will be highlighted on the map, as shown in Figure 1.15.

Figure 1.15. Setting the time zone.

Setting up the Root User

All Linux systems have an administrative account, root. This account has access to everything on the computer; it's similar to the Administrator account in Windows systems. As the power of root in Linux is so broad, it's critical that you make accessing the root account as difficult as possible. Choose a secure password for the root account -- one that consists of both upper- and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and special characters -- and enter it into the fields as shown in Figure 1.16. I would recommend that you record your root password somewhere and keep it safe: if you forget the password, it becomes very difficult to gain access to your machine should things go wrong.

Figure 1.16. Setting the root password.

Installing Software Packages

Previously, when you were asked to select an installation type (you selected from personal desktop, workstation, server, or custom), your selection determined which software package groups would be made available for selection in this screen. For your server installation, you'll see the full range of server software offered as part of the Fedora distribution, with a few nice extras thrown in. Select each of the package groups you want to install by clicking the appropriate check boxes, as shown in Figure 1.17.

Figure 1.17. Selecting package groups.

Each package group contains a number of packages; you can see a list of these (similar to the one shown in Figure 1.18) by clicking the Details link that appears when the package group is checked. This list is made up of base packages—packages that are required for this package group—and optional packages, which you can choose to install as your needs dictate.

Figure 1.18. Refining the package selection.

Through a long process of refinement, the Red Hat distributions have come to provide a full range of packages that meet nearly any common computing need. While it's a good goal to keep a server installation to a minimum, you may find that there are some packages you just can't do without. If you're using Linux for the first time, it's perfectly okay to accept the defaults; it's easy to add packages later if you realize that something else is required, and the defaults are carefully chosen by the Fedora team to cover the needs of most people.