Fire Up your own Linux Server

Of particular importance to your install are the GNOME Desktop Environment and the Server Configuration Tools, which provide a rich set of graphical tools for server configuration. The Server Configuration Tools provide the ability to configure Apache, mail servers, the boot loader, and other software critical to the configuration and operation of your server. Command line tools for accomplishing these tasks are, for the most part, provided in the core installation, but these can be complex and difficult to use. If you intend to administer your server using graphical tools, you'll need to pick and choose carefully from this section. Since you're setting up a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) server, you should install the (Apache) Web Server, MySQL, and PHP at this point.

Aside from the Server Configuration Tools, Fedora provides a full range of server software, including the Apache Web server, IMAP and Postfix mail servers, Samba for sharing files with Windows machines, a DNS server, an FTP server, and others. Beware of the temptation to install too many things at this stage, though; it's easy to install additional packages later, as required, and the more services that are installed now, the more security work you'll need to do later on. It's better to install only the things that you know you need now, and to add new services later, as you discover a requirement for them.

Of particular interest to your installation will be the optional Web Server packages provided in the Fedora Core distribution. These include the PHP scripting language, tools for connecting to MySQL and PostgreSQL database servers from PHP, and a full range of other software for communicating with the Apache server. If you're building a server for a dynamic, database-driven Website, you'll choose the pieces you need to make that possible from this section. You're also going to require a database; if you don't have a dedicated database server, Fedora Core 4 ships with two database packages: MySQL and PostgreSQL. MySQL is the simpler and most widely used of the two, so we'll be focusing on it in this book.

PHP and MySQL: Further Reading

We'll cover the high-level details of installing PHP and MySQL in a later chapter. However, the fine details of utilizing those packages lie outside the scope of this book. If you're looking for a detailed reference for building a dynamic server with PHP and MySQL, check out Kevin Yank's Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL (SitePoint, ISBN 0–9579218–1–0).

Other package groups in which you may be interested include the following:

• The Network Servers package group contains software for various network utility functions, such as DHCP and Kerberos.
• The Development Tools package group provides the tools necessary to build packages from source code. It's a good idea to have these tools installed, though you may not immediately see how they'll be used.
• The Administration Tools package group provides a full set of tools developed by Red Hat for server administration and configuration. You should install all of these, as they'll help you configure your system in the way you choose. There are alternative, command line-based tools intended for experienced administrators, but the graphical tools are easier for those who aren't experienced in Linux system administration to use.
• The System Tools package group contains a variety of useful tools that allow you to monitor the traffic to your server, connect to VNC and Windows Terminal servers and much more.

As you can see, a huge number of packages are available as part of Fedora Core. The installation provides a full range of software tools for building, configuring, and administering your Web server. It's not uncommon for budget restraints to dictate that your Web server serve more than a single purpose; if you're under such restrictions, you'll find the Fedora tools even more useful.

More Information, Please

As you may have noticed throughout the above series of screens, Fedora provides further information on each of the sections via the Release Notes button beneath the left window pane. This pane further serves as a help screen, providing specific details for each selected install package. Much like the brief package descriptions in the package Details screen, this pane provides a great resource for learning about your Linux system as you're installing it. The help screens provide much more detail than the brief summaries.

"Installing, Please Wait..."

With the package selection completed, you've finished the heavy lifting in the installation of Fedora Linux. The remainder is to be completed by the installer itself: formatting the hard disk with the partitions you created, installing each of the packages you selected, and performing dependency checking for each of the packages.

The process of installing your server will expose you to the power of the RPM Package Manager (RPM) system. (RPM was originally an acronym for Red Hat Package Manager, but was officially changed to a recursive acronym when it came into wide use outside of Red Hat. Other examples of recursive acronyms are PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) and GNU (GNU's Not Unix).) RPM is a format that's used to distribute software for inclusion in Fedora Core, as well as other Linux distributions such as SuSE and Mandriva Linux. The installation of your server will occur as a series of RPM transactions, which check for dependencies and install each chosen or required piece of software.

Dependencies Demystified

Nearly all computer software is dependent upon other pieces of software. A simple and obvious example of this is that any software running on your new server is going to depend on Linux. This relationship is called a dependency. Dependencies are engendered by the philosophy of modular software design, or building big programs from other, smaller programs. RPM investigates and handles these dependencies, checking for the existence of dependent code and noting those pieces that might be missing.

Now it's time to make yourself a nice cup of coffee: the installation of your Fedora Linux system may take as long as 45 minutes, depending on the speed of your machine. You'll be asked a few times during the installation to insert additional CD-ROMs and, when the installation is complete, you'll be prompted to reboot the machine. Your new server will start by presenting a screen that displays information about the Linux distribution and kernel version.

Note that if you've set up a dual-boot system, a countdown will occur before the boot loader automatically starts the default operating system. The countdown time can be adjusted through the boot loader configuration. This could be important for a production Web server: should the system go down, you'll probably want the machine to return to the network as quickly as possible.

Last Steps

With the main installation completed, a few housekeeping items are all that remain to be done. Your Fedora server will walk through the process of loading drivers, then present you with the Setup Agent: a set of tools for configuring your system once it has been installed. The use of such tools has become a common approach among Linux distributions, with SuSE providing the YaST2 tool, and Mandriva utilizing SystemDrak. You'll be presented with the Setup Agent's welcome screen, shown in Figure 1.19, followed by the licence agreement. Once you've indicated that you agree to the license, you'll enter the configuration screens.

Figure 1.19. The Setup Agent's Welcome screen.

The Date and Time configuration screen provides two tabs: Date & Time and Network Time Protocol. The first tab allows you to confirm that the system clock is accurate. The second tab provides the ability to configure the Network Time Protocol (NTP) software, which can be used to synchronize your system's clock with an authoritative source. Selecting Enable Network Time Protocol in this screen, as illustrated in Figure 1.20, will enable the NTP daemon—a program that runs in the background, periodically checking your system time against the time returned by an NTP server. Several of these servers are listed in the Server drop-down (a good NTP server is pool.ntp.org. This is actually a name shared by many servers, ensuring that it's always available). If NTP is enabled and a server selected, the daemon will start, checking the selected server before moving on to the next Setup Agent screen.

Figure 1.20. The Network Time Protocol tab.

On the Display screen, you can select the type of monitor you're using, the resolution at which you'd like to work, and the color depth. If you can't find your monitor in the list, you can choose Generic CRT Display or Generic LCD Display.

The Setup Agent also provides a screen that allows us to configure an additional user. The user details include a Username, Full Name, and Password, as shown in Figure 1.21. If you decide to allow network logins, you can also select that option from this screen.

Figure 1.21. Setting up a system user.

Create User Accounts

As with Windows, it's highly recommended that you create user accounts in addition to the main administration or root account. The root account is omnipotent; it has permissions to create, modify, and destroy any file on the system. Performing an action as root without careful forethought can have catastrophic consequences for your system. Nearly every Linux user can recount in detail the first (and likely only) time they rendered their system inoperable from the root account.

If the Fedora installer found a sound card on your system, you'll be asked to confirm its details. You'll also see a button with which to test it out, though, on a production Web server, this may not be necessary. There's also an Additional Software screen, which you can use to install any extra software you might need. You can just skip this screen for now.

Congratulations, you've now set up a Linux Web server! The graphical installation provides new Linux users with a manageable set of tools to get the system up and running. However, there are cases in which the text mode installation is a quicker and more efficient means to the same end. Let's take a look at the text mode installer now.

Summary

The installation of a Linux system requires a little more up-front research than does a Windows installation. As many Linux device drivers are created through community-based reverse-engineering, rather than by those devices' manufacturers, it's important to check a number of hardware compatibility lists prior to commencing the installation. This will help you ensure that drivers exist for the devices on your server.

Linux support can take many forms, the most popular being Web-based lists and forums. This approach truly represents the spirit of community in the open source world, where user experience is relied upon to provide solutions to Linux issues. All commercial Linux distributors provide some level of paid support, though the support period may vary widely from one distributor to another.

Linux systems can be installed with a full complement of graphical tools, or as a minimal text-based system. The installers follow suit, providing options to complete an installation from a graphical environment, or from a purely text-based environment.

Unlike Windows systems, the desktop environment is not inextricably bound to the operating system kernel code. Instead, the X Windows and desktop management systems are distinct systems that run in their own space. This feature of Linux allows for the creation of a fully operational, text-based system, which boasts a very small installation code base. However, most users will opt for a graphical system based on X Windows and any of a number of desktop managers.