Linux Install

Assuming you do not have much experience with Linux this page describes how to install it. We recommend SUSE Enterprise Linux by Novell.

SLES 11.3 64-bit

• Choose installation
• Welcome: Agree to the License Terms
• Media Check: Skip the media check by clicking next
• Installation Mode: Choose New installation
• Clock and Time Zone: Set your time zone
• Installation Settings:
  • if you have multiple disks click on Partitioning to select the disk the OS will be installed on
• The system will reboot and continue
• Password for the System Administrator "root": The lab password
• Hostname and Domain Name:
  • You can set the hostname to anything you can remember but for convenience, I recommend the program it is running and the last group of the IP address to make it easy to remember when using telnet. For example, if the VM has an IP address of 10.1.4.10 and it is running Reload, I would use the hostname reload10.
  • The lab is not exposed to the internet so you can use any domain you can remember. With all the support engineers we have and that our systems can be linked together, it can make sense to use a domain like [your initials].se.gwava.net so we do not interfere with each other and the other groups on the network.
• Network Configuration:
  • Disable the firewall
  • Enable VNC Remote Administration
    • With this enabled you would be able to use VNC Viewer [1] to connect to the desktop remotely at IPAddress:5910
  • Set the Network Interfaces
    • Edit the Ethernet Controller
      • Set a Statically assigned IP Address, you should have an IP range assigned to you
      • Set the Subnet Mask: in the support engineering lab we use: 255.255.0.0
      • Use the Hostname you created above, if it is not filled in.
    • Under the Hostname/DNS tab assign Name Servers, in the support engineering lab we use:
      • 205.171.3.65
      • 69.160.64.2
      • 216.83.130.2
    • Under the Routing Tab set the Default Gateway, in the support engineering lab we use: 10.1.1.1
• Test the Internet Connection
• Set the Novell Customer Center Configuration to Configure Later
• Network Services Configuration: take defaults
• User Authentication Method: Use Local
  • You can use your name or a generic like admin
• Release Notes: Next
• Hardware Configuration: Next
• Installation Complete: Finish

Post Install

Modify power management:

• Computer/Control Center/Screensaver/Power Management
  • Disable Activate screensaver when computer is idle
  • Set Put display to sleep when inactive for to never

You can modify disks with Partitioner:

• Computers/YaST/Partitioner

There are many commands that are useful to use on the terminal. Linux Commands

Security

In a lab, we don't worry about securing the server because we just want to get up and running quickly. While even in production a Retain server could not need to be exposed to the internet directly, except for updates, of course. Some customers do secure their servers which can cause connection issues when setting up Retain. Being familiar with industry practices is a good idea.

• My First 10 Minutes On a Server - Primer for Securing Ubuntu [2]
• 2016 Guide to User Data Security [3]

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