Hello All,

I am a Solaris admin who has just been given a project that will involve Red Hat Enterprise 4. I have no experience and am feeling a bit dumb. I have a couple questions:
1-What is the best way to partition a Linux server? (IE. You have / …./var…../usr…/user/local…../tmp…..etc) Should they all be separate file systems?

2-As a Red hat nubie……where can I find a step by step guide on setting up a kick start server ( I would like to set up a environment like jumpstart for those are familiar with SUN Solaris)

I’m a lost here so the simpler it is the better : )

I don't know about a "best" way, it all depends on what you are trying to achieve. As a rule, the all-in-one-partition approach has the advantage that you won't run out of space any time soon. The multiple partitions approach, however, tends to be somewhat more secure (if little providing that the box is well-secured). I like to use swap, /, /usr, /var, /tmp and /home partitions. It reduces the risk of anything or anyone breaking into a directory they should not have access to. It also reduces the risk of the whole system going down because a partition fills up for one reason or another. The most convenient solution is to use a Logical Volume Group, which allow for growing partitions as the need arises.

The best source of information I am aware of is a book, the "Fedora Core 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Bible". One piece of advise it offers is to install RHEL on one computer, then use the anaconda-ks.cfg file from the root directory as a basis to draw up your kickstart file. It also has tons of information on setting up any kind of server. I'm sure this information can be gathered from the net as well, I just haven't bothered doing the research after getting the book.

You'll get it in time, if you'll want.

You have no reason to.

For Q1: Well basically it depends on what you want to do with the system. For the bare minimum you should have two partitions: / (root partition) and a SWAP partition. Some like to keep it simple, and use the above "partitioning scheme", others (myself included) don't.

Personally I like to at least keep /home separate from the rest, as it allows me to reinstall/whatever without having to move around user's data.

I have the following partitions: /, /tmp, /usr, /var, /home, SWAP. I don't recommend this scheme to anyone. It works for me, for various, personal reasons.

Try to see where RedHat stores a lot of data before deciding on which partitions to make and of what sizes.

Take for example myself, wanting to make a /var partition, and running Gentoo Linux, I made it 2 GB big because portage (Gentoo's package management system) needs a relatively large /var when compiling big pieces of software. I've also made /usr pretty big as that's where the portage tree lies. And where all the distfiles are stored. Etc.

When I move to a new distribution, I try to find some people who already use it, ask them nicely to post the output of:

and specify a bit about what they have installed (i.e. big GUI applications, or a close to 100% CLI system etc.), and what they use it for; and if possible what the logic is behind their partitioning scheme.

I have never used RHEL so I can't help you from this point of view.

Many people have the opinion that the SWAP partition should usually be 2*(size of ram). However if you have 2GB of RAM I don't know if you really need 4GB SWAP. But for 128/256/512MB RAM .. seems to work pretty good.

Thank You all for the replies......Working now on reading (RTFM)