Installing Our First Linux Virtual Machine for Learning Systems Administration
-
Ready & waiting for lesson # 2: Linux: The Lay of the Land, Filesystem Herarchy
-
Thanks, SAM! I had my VM installed and ready last night.
-
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
So explain to me why you skipped turning on networking in the GUI?
In my experience with novice users, you avoid an entire host of issues if you additionally setup networking on that installation screen.
It is not like the desired networking information will change between the GUI install and time you first login.
Good point, I'm modifying it now.
I do realize, that it is not hard to setup networking in CentOS, but if your target is novice users, I think enabling networking in the GUI is the best thing to do. Because then you can drop straight to SSH next.
One other thing that trips people up is it doesn't enable the NIC by default. If you don't configure it and enable autloading, there is no networking until you configure the ifcfg file.
-
@johnhooks said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
So explain to me why you skipped turning on networking in the GUI?
In my experience with novice users, you avoid an entire host of issues if you additionally setup networking on that installation screen.
It is not like the desired networking information will change between the GUI install and time you first login.
Good point, I'm modifying it now.
I do realize, that it is not hard to setup networking in CentOS, but if your target is novice users, I think enabling networking in the GUI is the best thing to do. Because then you can drop straight to SSH next.
One other thing that trips people up is it doesn't enable the NIC by default. If you don't configure it and enable autloading, there is no networking until you configure the ifcfg file.
That is what I just said. Turn it on in the GUI during initial config.
-
@JaredBusch said:
@johnhooks said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
So explain to me why you skipped turning on networking in the GUI?
In my experience with novice users, you avoid an entire host of issues if you additionally setup networking on that installation screen.
It is not like the desired networking information will change between the GUI install and time you first login.
Good point, I'm modifying it now.
I do realize, that it is not hard to setup networking in CentOS, but if your target is novice users, I think enabling networking in the GUI is the best thing to do. Because then you can drop straight to SSH next.
One other thing that trips people up is it doesn't enable the NIC by default. If you don't configure it and enable autloading, there is no networking until you configure the ifcfg file.
That is what I just said. Turn it on in the GUI during initial config.
Wow, I don't know why I did that. It's been a long day.
-
Inquiring minds are asking about Lesson Plan #2
-
@FATeknollogee said:
Inquiring minds are asking about Lesson Plan #2
It is partially written and open on my desktop (I write in Atom then post over to keep my browser from crashing and losing it.) Hopefully later today.
-
If anyone has specific topic ideas, feel free to share. I have covered this material for decades but have never taught someone from the ground up and so am trying to figure out how to teach, and cover, the basic stuff both for a beginner and for someone coming from a Windows Admin background and not have huge gaps making things hard to understand.
-
@scottalanmiller Logging in using SSH with public/private keypairs instead of username/password to increase security might be a good topic or subtopic. Enjoying what has been posted so far!
-
@jt1001001 said:
@scottalanmiller Logging in using SSH with public/private keypairs instead of username/password to increase security might be a good topic or subtopic. Enjoying what has been posted so far!
That's definitely coming. SSH and key management will be major topics.
-
-
Something that I'd like a better grasp on is how the mindset is different. Coming from a decade+ of Windows admin work, some of the things that others call easy, or assume that it should be understood, I don't get. There are many examples, but today I ran across an irritating one: installing RAID drivers. In Windows, this is either easy, or undoable. In Linux (during install) it appears to require a significant background. "Just compile from source." is not an easy answer for me at this point because I don't even know where on my mental grid to fit that, much less how to do it for the variety of needed scenarios.
-
@Kelly said:
Something that I'd like a better grasp on is how the mindset is different. Coming from a decade+ of Windows admin work, some of the things that others call easy, or assume that it should be understood, I don't get. There are many examples, but today I ran across an irritating one: installing RAID drivers. In Windows, this is either easy, or undoable. In Linux (during install) it appears to require a significant background. "Just compile from source." is not an easy answer for me at this point because I don't even know where on my mental grid to fit that, much less how to do it for the variety of needed scenarios.
Wait. What? You shouldn't really be installing RAID drivers at least not to my knowledge. As far as the OS is concerned that is just raw disk right?
-
@Kelly said:
In Windows, this is either easy, or undoable. In Linux (during install) it appears to require a significant background. "Just compile from source." is not an easy answer for me at this point because I don't even know where on my mental grid to fit that, much less how to do it for the variety of needed scenarios.
That's a major difference in Linux. Windows is often perceived as easy because "impossible" and "give up" are common answers. In Linux, when it is easy it is normally way easier, when it is hard it is almost always still possible. It's odd that Linux being easier causes it to be seen as harder.
What RAID drivers did you have an issue with? Linux should generally need nothing, I've never seen an enterprise RAID card not supported out of the box,.
-
@coliver said:
Wait. What? You shouldn't really be installing RAID drivers at least not to my knowledge. As far as the OS is concerned that is just raw disk right?
Once in a while you need special ones no different than on Windows. While the OS sees it as a SAS card, sometimes they even need drives even just for a SAS adapter.
I've not seen any OS need this in a very long time, though.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
Wait. What? You shouldn't really be installing RAID drivers at least not to my knowledge. As far as the OS is concerned that is just raw disk right?
Once in a while you need special ones no different than on Windows. While the OS sees it as a SAS card, sometimes they even need drives even just for a SAS adapter.
I've not seen any OS need this in a very long time, though.
I know I've had to install some commodity RAID drivers into a workstation before. Never on a server though.
-
It is an onboard SAS controller that I'm trying to install in XenServer during boot. I didn't go into the details because it was just an example of a current issue, and that detail I didn't feel was germane. The XS installer is not seeing the configured arrays, only the drives themselves. Perhaps I should start a new thread...
-
@Kelly said:
It is an onboard SAS controller that I'm trying to install in XenServer during boot. I didn't go into the details because it was just an example of a current issue, and that detail I didn't feel was germane. The XS installer is not seeing the configured arrays, only the drives themselves. Perhaps I should start a new thread...
Sounds like FakeRAID. I think @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller have a guide to setup MD RAID in XenServer.
-
@Kelly said:
It is an onboard SAS controller that I'm trying to install in XenServer during boot. I didn't go into the details because it was just an example of a current issue, and that detail I didn't feel was germane. The XS installer is not seeing the configured arrays, only the drives themselves. Perhaps I should start a new thread...
FakeRAID is the issue there. Windows just hides this from you making you think that you have something that you don't. Linux is just helping you here by telling you the truth. For this setup, Linux kicks butt over Windows because with regular Linux and/or XenServer you just use the included enterprise software RAID on those drives and have something way better than Windows offers with or without the FakeRAID hardware.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@FATeknollogee said:
Inquiring minds are asking about Lesson Plan #2
It is partially written and open on my desktop (I write in Atom then post over to keep my browser from crashing and losing it.) Hopefully later today.
Any update on # 2?
