Some observations.
When I installed 6.0 (base install), the installation interface did not guide me through a network configuration. I do static IP addresses, not DHCP.
I ended up manually configuring the various /etc/sysconfig files. I forgot to do the GATEWAY configuration and it took me awhile to figure out why I wasn't able to connect to the server from outside the LAN.
I also forgot to do the DNS settings. It's deja-vu all over again, going back to the older Red Hat Linux distros.
Anyway, I wasn't able to find a configuration program like "netconfig" to help me out. Seems like a pretty big omission.
Any thoughts? Am I missing something?
=== Al
On 9/21/11, Al Sparks data345@yahoo.com wrote:
Some observations.
When I installed 6.0 (base install), the installation interface did not guide me through a network configuration. I do static IP addresses, not DHCP.
IIRC, it's in this small unobstrusive rectangular box that says "Setup Networking" or something like that in the lower left corner in the screen that ask for hostname. I'm not sure if this was the way upstream or adjustments made by the CentOS devs, but I'm guessing that the assumption is most people are going for DHCP-based installs so it saves some time.
Anyway, I wasn't able to find a configuration program like "netconfig" to help me out. Seems like a pretty big omission.
Any thoughts? Am I missing something?
I think it's been mentioned that was taken out. In any case, I've been getting used to turning off NetworkManager and editing ifcfg-xxx and /etc/resolv. Compared to obscurities like samba and libvirt, I'll say these are pretty doable in nano.
On Sep 20, 2011, at 12:07 PM, Al Sparks wrote:
Some observations.
When I installed 6.0 (base install), the installation interface did not guide me through a network configuration. I do static IP addresses, not DHCP.
I ended up manually configuring the various /etc/sysconfig files. I forgot to do the GATEWAY configuration and it took me awhile to figure out why I wasn't able to connect to the server from outside the LAN.
I also forgot to do the DNS settings. It's deja-vu all over again, going back to the older Red Hat Linux distros.
Anyway, I wasn't able to find a configuration program like "netconfig" to help me out. Seems like a pretty big omission.
Any thoughts? Am I missing something?
---- No doubt...
assuming that you used anaconda to interactively guide you through the install (the default - not kickstart), after the installation completed and the computer restarts, you should have been led through 'firstboot' which would have you configure: - time (date/time/timezone/time server) - security (iptables firewall) - selinux - networking - static or dynamic - hostname - dns resolution (/etc/resolv.conf) - hosts (/etc/hosts) - users - authentication - create the first user (non-root)
Guessing that you didn't look/watch the console on first boot but rather used ssh to connect from another station. If you haven't rebooted the system since the first boot, hook up a monitor/keyboard/mouse and see.
Craig
On 09/20/2011 02:49 PM, Craig White wrote:
On Sep 20, 2011, at 12:07 PM, Al Sparks wrote:
Some observations.
When I installed 6.0 (base install), the installation interface did not guide me through a network configuration. I do static IP addresses, not DHCP.
I ended up manually configuring the various /etc/sysconfig files. I forgot to do the GATEWAY configuration and it took me awhile to figure out why I wasn't able to connect to the server from outside the LAN.
I also forgot to do the DNS settings. It's deja-vu all over again, going back to the older Red Hat Linux distros.
Anyway, I wasn't able to find a configuration program like "netconfig" to help me out. Seems like a pretty big omission.
Any thoughts? Am I missing something?
[SNIP]
Guessing that you didn't look/watch the console on first boot but rather used ssh to connect from another station. If you haven't rebooted the system since the first boot, hook up a monitor/keyboard/mouse and see.
Operation of the firstboot script depends on having a GUI installed. It doesn't get executed if you installed just the base system.
On Tuesday, September 20, 2011 04:44:35 PM Robert Nichols wrote:
On 09/20/2011 02:49 PM, Craig White wrote:
Guessing that you didn't look/watch the console on first boot but rather used ssh to connect from another station. If you haven't rebooted the system since the first boot, hook up a monitor/keyboard/mouse and see.
Operation of the firstboot script depends on having a GUI installed. It doesn't get executed if you installed just the base system.
Actually, this isn't correct. On my RHEL 6.1 system, on firstboot with a non-GUI console a curses-based (or a reasonable facsimile of a curses-based) text-mode configurator came up, and allowed me to configure networking and a number of other items. Do an install without GUI (not necessarily a minimal install, but a server install) and see what comes up on first boot. Like I said, that's what my RHEL 6.1 box did on first boot.
On Tuesday 20 September 2011 17:39, the following was written:
On Tuesday, September 20, 2011 04:44:35 PM Robert Nichols wrote:
On 09/20/2011 02:49 PM, Craig White wrote:
Guessing that you didn't look/watch the console on first boot but rather used ssh to connect from another station. If you haven't rebooted the system since the first boot, hook up a monitor/keyboard/mouse and see.
Operation of the firstboot script depends on having a GUI installed. It doesn't get executed if you installed just the base system.
Actually, this isn't correct. On my RHEL 6.1 system, on firstboot with a non-GUI console a curses-based (or a reasonable facsimile of a curses-based) text-mode configurator came up, and allowed me to configure networking and a number of other items. Do an install without GUI (not necessarily a minimal install, but a server install) and see what comes up on first boot. Like I said, that's what my RHEL 6.1 box did on first boot.
I guess it would all depend on what ISO you are using then because I built a new system this weekend using 'CentOS-6.0-x86_64-minimal.iso' and upon reboot I never get anything for first boot. I had to edit my configuration files by hand to get the system online.
NetworkManager is a POS and should be dropped. Of course this is my opinion and I stand by it.
I guess it would all depend on what ISO you are using then because I built a new system this weekend using 'CentOS-6.0-x86_64-minimal.iso' and upon reboot I never get anything for first boot. I had to edit my configuration files by hand to get the system online.
NetworkManager is a POS and should be dropped. Of course this is my opinion and I stand by it.
I wouldn't care. I can go back to the old way of doing things. But I have too many Windows admins that dabble in the Linux space (CentOS really) and I really don't need the whining. === Al
On Tuesday, September 20, 2011 06:25:45 PM Robert Spangler wrote:
On Tuesday 20 September 2011 17:39, the following was written:
Do an install without GUI (not necessarily a minimal install, but a server install) and see what comes up on first boot. Like I said, that's what my RHEL 6.1 box did on first boot.
I guess it would all depend on what ISO you are using then because I built a new system this weekend using 'CentOS-6.0-x86_64-minimal.iso' and upon reboot I never get anything for first boot. I had to edit my configuration files by hand to get the system online.
As RHEL doesn't do a minimal install ISO, I installed with the default DVD ISO install. As I said, this is the upstream installation, as a server. If you're using the minimal ISO, then YMMV. The point simply was that the firstboot script does not depend upon the GUI, that is all.
NetworkManager is a POS and should be dropped. Of course this is my opinion and I stand by it.
With RHEL 6.1 running a server (that has remote GUI capabilities, but a text-mode console), I have found NetworkManager to be stable, and to make it quite a bit easier to configure multiple interfaces on first use. It simply was not that difficult to set up and get persistent networking from the get-go. I used the remote VNC GUI install, and set up networking inside the installer for all four NICs, even naming the connections in a reasonable manner.
Everything just worked and has been rock-solid stable since installation. Having the neat little 'blink this NIC's LED' made identification a snap, and when set up correctly even if the cards are moved around the settings are persistent. Of course, cloning and going to another box, or complete NIC replacement, requires more thought since the MAC addresses of the NIC's are used for device naming and assignment, but that's true no matter what way you configure your networking, since you have little to no control over NIC enumeration order in a deterministic fashion. A little forethought and it's painless even then (I do this frequently with virtual machine clones).
Text mode usage of NM isn't hard once the connections are set up, either. Starting and stopping interfaces by connection name rather than device name has been quite handy for temporary tunnels/connections and such, as well. That was all done in text mode, too, no GUI required. GUI only required at present for configuring connections; that issue is being worked on.
Upstream may completely deprecate the old way in favor of NM one day; getting familiar with how to drive NM is a good idea for the future, regardless of what we think about NM.
On Sep 20, 2011, at 1:44 PM, Robert Nichols wrote:
On 09/20/2011 02:49 PM, Craig White wrote:
On Sep 20, 2011, at 12:07 PM, Al Sparks wrote:
Some observations.
When I installed 6.0 (base install), the installation interface did not guide me through a network configuration. I do static IP addresses, not DHCP.
I ended up manually configuring the various /etc/sysconfig files. I forgot to do the GATEWAY configuration and it took me awhile to figure out why I wasn't able to connect to the server from outside the LAN.
I also forgot to do the DNS settings. It's deja-vu all over again, going back to the older Red Hat Linux distros.
Anyway, I wasn't able to find a configuration program like "netconfig" to help me out. Seems like a pretty big omission.
Any thoughts? Am I missing something?
[SNIP]
Guessing that you didn't look/watch the console on first boot but rather used ssh to connect from another station. If you haven't rebooted the system since the first boot, hook up a monitor/keyboard/mouse and see.
Operation of the firstboot script depends on having a GUI installed. It doesn't get executed if you installed just the base system.
---- actually, I haven't installed RHEL or CentOS v 6.x at all - just going on recollection but even if it boots text mode, it still seemed to run a firstboot configuration program.
Craig
On 09/20/2011 04:43 PM, Craig White wrote:
Operation of the firstboot script depends on having a GUI installed. It doesn't get executed if you installed just the base system.
actually, I haven't installed RHEL or CentOS v 6.x at all - just going on recollection but even if it boots text mode, it still seemed to run a firstboot configuration program.
That hasn't been my experience, and the RHEL 6 Installation Guide says:
"The first time you start your Red Hat Enterprise Linux system in run level 5 (the graphical run level), the FirstBoot tool appears, which guides you through the Red Hat Enterprise Linux configuration."
On Tuesday, September 20, 2011 09:23:03 PM Robert Nichols wrote:
That hasn't been my experience, and the RHEL 6 Installation Guide says:
"The first time you start your Red Hat Enterprise Linux system in run level 5 (the graphical run level), the FirstBoot tool appears, which guides you through the Red Hat Enterprise Linux configuration."
Use the Source, Luke (especially the chkconfig info for Default-Start):
[root@www ~]# head -16 /etc/init.d/firstboot #!/bin/bash ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: firstboot # Default-Start: 3 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 2 4 6 # Required-Start: # Should-Start: $network # Short-Description: Starts the firstboot configuration program # Description: Firstboot runs the first time a machine is booted after # installation. It checks for the existance of an # /etc/sysconfig/firstboot file. If the file exists and # contains RUN_FIRSTBOOT=NO, firstboot will not run. Otherwise # firstboot will be run. If /etc/reconfigSys exists or if # "reconfig" is provided in the kernel boot arguments, # firstboot will run in reconfiguration mode. ### END INIT INFO [root@www ~]# cat /etc/issue Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.1 (Santiago) Kernel \r on an \m
[root@www ~]#
And it does indeed run on first boot in runlevel 3. Been there, done that, on RHEL6.1. If firstboot gets installed, it will run in either runlevel, regardless of what the documentation says (and I have read the documentation; the key criteria is whether firstboot is installed or not, and that doesn't happen after a text-mode installation). Read firstboot's dependencies to see what installing firstboot requires; yes, X is required, but runlevel 5 default startup is not (this was the default setup when I installed RHEL 6.1 server (through a VNC remote GUI); even though I wanted a remote desktop capability and thus X and other GUI things installed, there is no local GUI on the server console; the server install defaulted to runlevel 3 even with GNOME installed).
Try it.
While I didn't try a serial console, in theory this should allow a serial console installation and use of a server that happens to serve remote desktops.
-
Al Sparks -
Craig White -
Emmanuel Noobadmin -
Lamar Owen -
Robert Nichols -
Robert Spangler