How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal

JaredBusch

First, start with the Fedora 25 Netinstall ISO. That is a direct link to the ISO.
This is the download page.

Download the ISO and move it to your hypervisor ISO store.

Create a new VM and give it a single vCPU and say either half a gig or a gig of RAM. Connect it to your vSwitch and boot it up.

You will be greeted with this screen counting down from 60 seconds.
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Arrow up to the first choice and hit enter. A few moments later you will be presented with the installation GUI. Select your language appropriately and click Continue.
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Click on the installation destination
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Wait for the screen to load and then click done. The single virtual disk you made will already be selected along with a default partitioning setup.
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Now click on Network and hostname
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Give your system a hostname and click the apply button to set it. Change your networking if desired (I generally use DHCP reservations so mostly leave this as DHCP). Then click Done
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Click on Time & Date
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Set your timezone as desired, then click the gear icon on the top right to setup NTP.
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By default Fedora 25 only lists one time source.
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I always use 3 at a minimum, so add two more. Click OK then Done
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Now click on software selection. By default Fedora 25 selects Fedora Server Edition. I hate that. I want full control over what feature are going to be on every instance. I always want to start with the minimal experience.
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When you click on the Minimal Install button, you will notice the add on list to the right will change.
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The only add on I check is the Guest Agents, because I am always 100% of the time running this on a hypervisor.
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Click done and you will be returned to the main setup screen. It should look like this. Now you click Begin Installation.
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You will be given a screen to set a root password.
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Click on it, and set a root password then click done.
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I never add users at this point. I will do that later from SSH.
Wait for the install to finish and click Reboot.
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While it is rebooting, make sure your hypervisor removes the ISO from the boot sequence. Hyper-V Server 2016 does not eject the ISO, but it does update the boot order when the VM is built as Generation 2. Your mileage may vary depending on the hypervisor.

Once rebooted, you will be greeted with the log in screen. Log in once as root and get the IP of the system with ip a sh then you can do everything else from SSH assuming that you have direct IP connectivity to the VM.

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If you are running this under Hyper-V you will need to add the Hyper-V tools.
Log in as root and install them with dnf

dnf install -y hyperv-daemons

FATeknollogee

Thx JB, sub'd!

FATeknollogee

@JaredBusch Let's say you want to use this VM as a file server.
Is it better to create 2 disks (1 for o/s + 1 for storage) or just one big ass disk?

JaredBusch

@FATeknollogee said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@JaredBusch Let's say you want to use this VM as a file server.
Is it better to create 2 disks (1 for o/s + 1 for storage) or just one big ass disk?

As this example showed, I had a 127GB disk because I let Hyper-V Server 2016 use its default.

Fedora only took 17GB of it. 2GB for swap and 15GB for root.

The rest is sitting there waiting to be used however you want.

So all you have to do is make the space usable.

#create a logical volume named data
lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n data fedora

#format it to ext4
mkfs.ext4 /dev/fedora/data

#make a directory to mount it
mkdir /data

#mount it
mount /dev/fedora/data /data

Obviously you will want to have this mounted on reboot, so add it to /etc/fstab

nano /etc/fstab

#add this
/dev/fedora/data /data                    ext4    defaults        1 2

JaredBusch

Note that the fedora in all those commands to use the space is because that is the name of the volume group

vgdisplay

FATeknollogee

Does the same principle apply if I made the default disk 4 or 6TB in size?

JaredBusch

@FATeknollogee said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

Does the same principle apply if I made the default disk 4 or 6TB in size?

That is really just up to how you want to manage it.

At that scale, I would personally want it to be a separate virtual disk. But that is honestly only because I have more options for recovery. It is easier to work with a disk that you know have nothing but data than tryign to attach a once bootable disk to a new VM, etc.

None of that has anything to do with the host and how it mounts the space.

Edit: but evcen as a separate virtual disk, you will format and mount it the same way. Well, barring it being a different device (/dev/sdb).

FATeknollogee

@JaredBusch said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@FATeknollogee said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

Does the same principle apply if I made the default disk 4 or 6TB in size?

That is really just up to how you want to manage it.

At that scale, I would personally want it to be a separate virtual disk. But that is honestly only because I have more options for recovery. It is easier to work with a disk that you know have nothing but data than tryign to attach a once bootable disk to a new VM, etc.

None of that has anything to do with the host and how it mounts the space.

Thanks, that's kinda what I thought, just wanted to make sure.

Emad R

@JaredBusch

Wow so pre-configured addons and choices compared to Centos 7 Minimal installation.

JaredBusch

@msff-amman-Itofficer said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@JaredBusch

Wow so pre-configured addons and choices compared to Centos 7 Minimal installation.

Not the same thing at all. The CentOS install media is only for minimal, this is a net install and you choose which method you want.

The full CentOS media has choices too.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@msff-amman-Itofficer said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@JaredBusch

Wow so pre-configured addons and choices compared to Centos 7 Minimal installation.

Not the same thing at all. The CentOS install media is only for minimal, this is a net install and you choose which method you want.

The full CentOS media has choices too.

A CentOS example would be...

http://centos.itt-consulting.com/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-NetInstall-1611.iso

black3dynamite

When selecting guest agents, it doesn't automatically installs hyperv-daemons.

JaredBusch

@black3dynamite I noticed hyper-v did not show a good agent. Did not have time to test.

NashBrydges

Is Fedora ext4 by default? Can you choose XFS during install?

scottalanmiller

@NashBrydges said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

Is Fedora ext4 by default? Can you choose XFS during install?

XFS, EXT4, BtrFS... you can configure basically anything during the install.

NashBrydges

@scottalanmiller said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@NashBrydges said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

Is Fedora ext4 by default? Can you choose XFS during install?

XFS, EXT4, BtrFS... you can configure basically anything during the install.

Thanks.

JaredBusch

Yes, by default it is ext4 if you let it partition as shown.

StrongBad

Why ext4 as a default? Feels like they are moving backwards there. They made the move to XFS from ext4 already.

FATeknollogee

@JaredBusch said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@FATeknollogee said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@JaredBusch Let's say you want to use this VM as a file server.
Is it better to create 2 disks (1 for o/s + 1 for storage) or just one big ass disk?

As this example showed, I had a 127GB disk because I let Hyper-V Server 2016 use its default.

Fedora only took 17GB of it. 2GB for swap and 15GB for root.

The rest is sitting there waiting to be used however you want.

So all you have to do is make the space usable.
#create a logical volume named data
lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n data fedora

#format it to ext4
mkfs.ext4 /dev/fedora/data

#make a directory to mount it
mkdir /data

#mount it
mount /dev/fedora/data /data
Obviously you will want to have this mounted on reboot, so add it to /etc/fstab
nano /etc/fstab

#add this
/dev/fedora/data /data                    ext4    defaults        1 2

edit: If I have 2 virtual disks (1 for o/s + 1 for data). Anyone have a simple "how to do this" guide on the 2nd disk: /dev/xvdb or /dev/sdb ? (I read some guides on the 'net, thy all seem long & winded)

JaredBusch

@StrongBad said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

Why ext4 as a default? Feels like they are moving backwards there. They made the move to XFS from ext4 already.

No idea, but what you are seeing in this thread is what you get from a 127GB vhdx and let Fedora do automatic partitioning as shown above (edit: copied below)
https://i.imgur.com/zZlenx9.png