Understanding the red hat linux file system structure

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Red Hat®Linux®Networking and System Administration

Red Hat®Linux®Networking and System
Administration

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Copyright © 2002 Hungry Minds, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book, including interior design, cover design, and icons, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Credits

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Viktorie Navratilova
Dennis Powell
Brandon Wiley

Preface

Red Hat Linux is the most popular distribution of Linux currently in use. Red Hat Linux has shown itself to be a robust, reliable operating system that can run on a variety of hardware, from personal computers to large mainframes. Linux in general, and Red Hat Linux in particular, is a very powerful operating system that can be used at the enterprise level as a full-fledged server, as well as at the workstation level for typical user applications. For those of us dissatisfied with the reliability of other com-mercially available operating systems, Red Hat Linux is a pleasant alternative.

Part II — Red Hat Linux Network Services

This part of the book is where you learn about the networking services available in Red Hat Linux. Chapter 6 gives an explanation of the TCP/IP protocol suite and how to configure it on your system. Chapter 7 tells how to configure the Network File System (NFS) for sharing files with other Linux or Unix computers on your network. Chapter 8 provides a description of the Network Information System (NIS) as well as configuration instructions. If you have computers running Microsoft operating systems, Chapter 9 is where you find instructions for connecting your Red Hat Linux network to the Windows network. The final chapter in this part, Chapter 10, tells you how to connect your Red Hat Linux network to computers running the Apple operating system.

Internet services are somewhat different from network services used on an internal network. Chapter 11 begins this part by explaining Internet services, and includes a discussion of the xinetd and TCP wrappers configuration files.A fundamental part of using the Internet is the ability to enter a domain name and have it converted into an IP number that is the actual address of a computer. The name-to-number conver-sion is done by the Domain Name System (DNS), which is covered in Chapter 12. Chapter 13 describes the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and gives installation and con-figuration instructions. Sending and receiving e-mail has become so common that it’s hard to remember the time before we had it. Chapter 14 explains mail services and its configuration. Last, but not least, you find an explanation of setting up a Web server. Chapter 15 covers Apache, one of the most popular Web servers in use.

Part IV — Red Hat Linux System Maintenance

How to Use This Book

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Until I started writing books, I never realized how many people are involved with producing a book like this and how much work they do. The first person I want to thank is my coauthor, Kurt Wall. Kurt is the reason I became involved with working on Linux books when I was asked to technical edit a Linux book several years ago. Since then, Kurt and I have collaborated on other projects, most recently this book.

I also want to acknowledge the hard work of Viktorie Navratilova, Dennis Powell, and Brandon Wiley who stepped in and wrote several chapters for me when I was out with a medical problem. Their help was a significant contribution to the completion of this book.

Like Terry, I appreciate the work of Viktorie, Dennis, and Brandon in helping Terry and me complete this book when Terry became ill. Thanks to Terri Varveris for giving me the chance to write about Linux, something I truly enjoy doing — Terri, let’s do this again. Here’s a vigorous nod to Marty Minner, who deftly managed the day-to-day details of converting raw manuscript into a finished book — every author should have such a capable, patient, and witty project editor. Kudos as well to the rest of the team at Hungry Minds who labored to make this book a reality.

I would be remiss if I failed to thank Terry Collings for inviting me to participate in this book — he may yet decide that I didn’t do him any favors by getting him involved in writing books. I look forward to another opportunity to work with him.

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Sound card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Network card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Checking for Supported Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Creating the Red Hat Boot Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Starting the Red Hat Linux Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Partitioning the Hard Disk for Red Hat Linux . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Naming disks and devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Mounting a file system on a device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Understanding the swap partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Preparing disk partitions for Red Hat Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Configuring Red Hat Linux Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Installing the Boot Loader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Configuring the network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Setting the time zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Setting the root password and add user accounts . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Configuring password authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Selecting the Package Groups to Install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Completing the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Using KickStart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 KickStart Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Auth — Authentication Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 bootloader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 clearpart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 device --opts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 driverdisk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 firewall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Installation methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 interactive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 lilo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 lilocheck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 raid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 reboot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 rootpw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 skipx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 timezone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 xconfig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 zerombr — Partition table initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 %packages — Package Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Contents xix