Remote Install
 

I was given a small office server that had an OLD version of Redhat on it and a interface designed by a now defunct company. The server has no CDROM drive nor floppy drive.

I want to wipe out the system and install a clean copy of linux but I have no idea where to begin. I am very interested in making the best use of this machine as a small testing server for my hosting business and as a backup machine.

I have the ability to access the command line as root.

The server has a 10G hard drive and 128 megs of Ram on it.

I hope everyone can help.

connect to the internet or a network system that has the rpm files and do

rpm -Uv filename
or

rpm -iv filename

on the rpms

If I understand you correctly I just get the server to connect to the internet and at a site that has the RPM files and then just run the Rpm -Uvfilename.

Just to show you how much a newbie I am....

how do I point the server to the internet from the command line...

Mike

you download the rpm files then do the upgrade -U is upgrade -i is install. If the package is already installed you neeed to use -U if not use -i

connecting to the internet depends on your isp, if you are connected already you can download files using wget or ftp

example:

ncftp ftp.redhat.com

login as = anonymous
password = your email address

cd /pub/redhat/linux/8.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS

get *rpm

I have my system configured with a dlink router connected to my modem and my server and my pc connected to the router. Should I have connected the server to the modem and the router to the server?

I managed to add a user to the server and vi a index.htm page too. I can see it on my local network browser but I can't get it so my buddy can see it... any ideas?

you need to configure your ip address, default route, and dns. This can be done using dhcp if you have it, or else manually configure it.

The dyn Ip from my ISP is something like 148.333.XXX.XXX and my internal IP for the server is like 192.128.0.XX. I have the Router configured with a DMZ for the server IP but I don't know about the The DHCP for the router sees the server and gives me a Mac address and an expiry time. but do I configure the default route on the Router or the Server? do I configure the DNS on the server or the router?

if the router works then I would set the default route of the server to the router, and dns to your isps dns on the server

Ok, Thanks for all your help so far...

Let me see if I understand the basics of this right.... The default route of the server... the 255 number is the route that the request goes to the server from the Router... like the exchange mechanism from outside to inside IP address. Is that right?

And I set the DNS (148.wha.teve.er) on the server. I don't quite understand the theory behind that...

Thanks again

you lost me here..

The default route of the server... the 255 number is the route that the request goes to the server from the Router..


I dont know the internal ip of the router, so I will say it's 192.168.0.1 just to give it a number


so on the server I would do this

route add default gw 192.168.0.1

then if my isps dns servers are

68.63.0.5
68.63.0.6

I will setup the contents of the file /etc/resolv.conf like this on the server

nameserver 68.63.0.5
nameserver 68.63.0.6

this is how it works.. Like I really know :)


when you try to send to some address that's not on your local network, it's sent by way of the default route, where the router is responsible for sending it to other routers, until it finds the server it's destined for.

The dns servers are servers that have the ability to resolve names into addresses, your browser will request an ip address for a name you type like www.redhat.com from the dns server, it will send you an ip address that you use to connect to the right server using routers that know where the ip address is.

Is there a way to find out what my ISPs DNS servers are without asking them?

What does the 255.255.255.240 do anyway?

Thanks so very much again.

Hopefully this will thread will be useful for someone else down the road... it sure has been helpful for me.

Thanks

that looks like a netmask, it would define the network, dividing it up into subnets. which defines how many ip addresses are on each subnet.


without asking your isp it would be possible if they configure dns over dhcp

by connecting to the modem and running dhcpcd the isp will send you an ip address/netmask, default gateway, and dns servers

you can see your ip address and netmask by running this

ifconfig

you can see you dns servers by doing this

cat /etc/resolv.conf


also you can look in the folder /etc/dhcpc for the info file on the interface connected to the modem. this file tells everything

cat /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-eth1.info