How to install Linux over a network

Step 1. Mount the CD
At your application server, as root, enter the following command after placing the Slackware 3.5 CD in the CD-ROM drive:

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt

This command may need to be adjusted accordingly to reflect the distribution you are using on the application server and choices you made during installation and configuration of that machine. Our example is based on the assumption that the mount point for the CD-ROM is /mnt. If you use a different mount point, substitute that mount point for /mnt in the following steps. (Duh!)

Step 2. Create a boot floppy for X terminal installation
Change to the /mnt directory:

cd /mnt

Examine the contents of the Slackware 3.5 CD

ls -l

See a directory named bootdsks.144? This directory contains boot images for use with 3.5 inch floppies, hence the 144 extension. Change into that directory and run ls -l again -- use less because there are lots of different images.

ls -l | less

The one we are looking for is called net.i. A logical choice of names, if a bit terse, because this file is a "NET"work boot "I"mage.

We don't simply copy this boot image to the floppy disk: We use the dd utility. Label one of the freshly formatted floppies "net.i" and place it in the first floppy drive of the application server. Use the following command, as root, to create the boot floppy:

dd if=net.i of=/dev/fd0

Once the lamp on the floppy drive is extinguished, and you are returned to the command prompt, you may remove the floppy disk. See man dd for additional details.

Step 3. Create a root floppy for X terminal installation
Label the remaining floppy color.gz and place it in the first floppy drive. Then cd .. to leave the bootdsks.144 directory. You are now looking for the repository of root disks and the ls -l command will reveal -- surprise! -- rootdsks. No extension to the name this time, just rootdsks. So,

cd rootdsks

and prepare to place the mother of all root disks, the Slackware color.gz root image, on the floppy. (This is the same root disk used for most Slackware installations whether from a local CD-ROM or via the network). Again you will use dd:

dd if=color.gz of=/dev/fd0

As soon as the floppy drive's lamp goes dark and you are returned to the command prompt, remove the floppy. You are done at the application server for now, but don't unmount the CD-ROM.

Step 4. Boot the X terminal with the net.i boot disk
The faint of heart may need to break for a wee dram but those made of sterner stuff will recover quickly from the stress of carrying two floppy disks all the way from the application server to the first X terminal machine.

As soon as you are seated at the X terminal workstation, insert the net.i boot disk into the floppy drive of the X terminal PC and turn on the power. If you haven't already done so, it may be necessary to enter the BIOS setup utility to permit the machine to boot from the floppy drive first. Chances are, the hard drive has a bootable installation of MS-DOS or Windows 95 already installed. (It makes you wonder sometimes -- do people really want me to see the files they leave on their machines when they get rid of them? I mean, I've been to New Orleans, but come on, people! Attention Windows users: Use format c: as the last step before disposal.)

The floppy will then load and you are presented with some on-screen information that is worth reading... and a boot prompt. As soon as you are ready, press the ENTER key.

Step 5. Write down the information about: your network card
It will take a few minutes, but the computer will eventually pause and prompt you to:

Insert root floppy disk to be loaded into ramdisk and press ENTER

Don't do that.

Look above this admonition and locate a line that references eth0. eth0, is of course, your nis and you may need the information later. The Slackware net.i boot disk looks for the nis as it boots and reports it's findings on-screen -- including both the type (NE2000, 3c509, etc.,) and values for IRQ and IO (irq 5, 0x280 etc.,). I often grab my Dymo Label Maker and put this information on the case of the machine below the label I made earlier with the IP address assigned to it.

NOW you can Insert root floppy to be loaded into ramdisk and press ENTER. Replace the net.i boot disk with the color.gz root disk in the floppy drive and let it load.

Step 6. Login as "root" and create Linux partitions
After the color.gz root disk is finished loading, you will be prompted to login as root without a password. You will then want to use fdisk to create two primary partitions just as described in part 4.

Since this machine is a Pentium 75, from prior experience, I know that it will likely permit me to enter the ncurses-based setup utility without difficulty as soon as I am done with fdisk -- even though it has only 8 megabytes RAM. But if it happened to give me any trouble during installation that appears to be the result of insufficient RAM, I would repeat Step 4 and Step 5. As soon as I partition the disk, I would put the swap partition to work:

mkswap /dev/hda2

And then:

swapon /dev/hda2

If the machine had been an 486, and if increasing the RAM from 8 megabytes up to 12 or 16 megabytes hadn't been an option (maybe I'm too lazy to open the case, or I don't have any spare RAM, or I'm stubborn) -- I would plan to do this in every case. The net.i installation is slightly more "resource intensive" than installation from a local CD-ROM.

Step 7. Launch the setup utility
Simply type setup and press enter. No different than an installation from a local CD-ROM. If it had been necessary to initialize a swap partition before running setup, I would not permit the setup utility to format and initialize the already running swap partition. That too, is no different from a standard installation -- you simply follow the script. You may need to remap your keyboard, and you will be asked to select your / directory. Very standard stuff and quite easy to follow.

Step 8. Select source media
This is the first significant departure from the usual installation from a local CD-ROM. You will be asked to select between several possible sources. Although you are actually using a CD-ROM, it is not located on this computer. It is mounted and exported as an NFS partition at the application server, so select Install via NFS.

Step 9. Orient the installation utility to your network configuration
The first question you will be asked is your IP address. This series (including part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4) assumes you are following along and creating a LAN that includes eight X terminals with Class C addresses in the range 192.168.1.20 through 192.168.1.27. If this is the first X terminal you are setting up, then enter the first IP address:

192.168.1.20

Next, you will be asked for your netmask and you will read a hint that this will typically be 255.255.255.0, and unless you did something different when you set up the application server, you will want to take the hint and enter:

255.255.255.0

Leave the following field asking for a gateway IP blank. (If your application server is on the other side of a gateway, then you aren't following our basic recipe and you will have to adjust procedures to fit your unique circumstances.)

When you are asked for your NFS server IP, enter the address you assigned when we configured the application server . I'll assume you assigned that machine:

192.168.1.10

Finally, you will be asked for the Slackware source directory. Now then, if your application server's CD-ROM is mounted as /mnt you will enter:

/mnt/slakware

Yes, that's slakware without the "c." (Windows compatibility, and all that.)

Step 10. Confirm that the NFS partition is mounted
As soon as you pressed enter, the installer will advise that it is temporarily switching to text mode as it configures the Ethernet card and connects to the server's CD-ROM. If all goes as expected, it should report as the last line under Current Mount Table:

192.168.1.10:/mnt/slakware on /var/log/mount type nfs (ro, addr=192.168.1.10)

And below that:

"If you see errors above and the mount table doesn't show your NFS server, then try setting up NFS again. Do you think you need to try this again ([y]es, [n]o)?"

If it all looks okay, the correct response is [n]o.

Step 11. Select disksets to install
Slackware divides the distribution into groupings of packages that are easy and intuitive to select for installation called disksets: a legacy of the days when floppy installations were common. For an X terminal, everything we need is contained in disksets:

* A The base Linux system
* N Networking utilities
* X X Free86 and X Window System utilities

If this example machine had been equipped with a very small hard drive, or if it was intended for use in a network where additional security considerations are necessary, I would opt to select packages and delete things like Apache, chat clients, all window managers, etc. In this instance, I have plenty of room and the default installation is adequately secure, so I let the installation utility install everything in these three disksets.

Step 12. Carry on
The remainder of the installation is no different than any other Slackware Linux installation, and similar enough to many other distributions that you shouldn't have any real difficulties.

The information provided by the net.i boot disk (Step 3, above) may come in handy following the first reboot of the installed system. A number of factors, including your choice of installed kernels, may render the network unreachable after the network installation of Slackware. The easiest fix is usually to open /etc/rc.d/rc.modules with a text editor, such as vi, and uncomment (delete the leading hash mark{#}) of the line that corresponds to your nis, so that the appropriate kernel module will load during system initialization. The easiest way to get the module loaded is to then reboot.

Step 13. Testing, testing
Once the network is up and running ping the server IP to test the connection:

ping 192.168.1.10

You can turn to the xf86config utility and configure the X terminal as per part 4 of this series.

Several machines can share the CD-ROM on the application server for simultaneous NFS installation. Even an 8X CD-ROM can support more than one installation. You can make multiple copies of the boot and root disks (handy if you have an assistant) or you can perform all the installs yourself in "round robin" style: Move to the next machine at the completion of each step. A clipboard and check list can help prevent disaster!

Step 14. Unmount the CD-ROM on the server
Once you are done installing Linux on the X terminals, return to the application server and unmount the CD-ROM:

umount /mnt

And that's it!

In Part 6, I'll touch upon some of the differences between NFS installation of Slackware 3.5 and the more contemporary 7.x series as well as providing some pointers for installing other distributions via the network.

Until then, let's move on, for the benefit of the majority of readers who are already far more adept than I am at these basic tasks -- and who have a network of X terminals running -- running but, shall we say, with an embarrassing little problem?

How to make AbiWord run properly
AbiWord is one of the gems of the free software and open source movements. Yes, it may still be somewhat beta-quality code, but most of the 0.7.x releases are already quite useful for a variety of word processing tasks. Abiword ranks high among software applications that are useful to demonstrate the vitality of open source development to non believers. It is probably something you want to include in your Cheap and Easy network of X terminals.

If you are actually creating a network to make a demonstration to management, don't get in a big hurry. You want to make sure that when the boss clicks on that icon, he or she gets AbiWord -- and that you don't get a red face.

AbiWord is simple to install and configure on standalone machines, and our "mini-mainframe" -- a commodity PC that acts as the file/print/application server to our network of X terminals -- is no exception.

Unfortunately, the first time you log on from one of the "Cheap and Easy" X terminal workstations and attempt to open AbiWord, the familiar little brief case toting bipedal ant that now graces the AbiWord splash screen appears -- followed by an error message that may flash by too quickly to read -- and then AbiWord goes away. You are back to looking at your window manager desktop and wondering, "What just happened here?"

You try it again -- same result. Quit wasting time and get this system ready for management to look at! The problem is rooted in fonts. AbiWord insists on using its own.

There are a number of things you could do, including configuration of a font server, but why bother? This is Cheap and Easy server centrism and we want a Cheap and Easy fix that will work on virtually any distribution without a lot of configuration.

AbiWord gets installed in different locations depending upon several factors. These include the particular Linux distribution you have chosen to use on the application server, the AbiWord package you selected for installation (tar.gz, rpm, deb, etc.,) and choices permitted you, as root, during installation. AbiWord installs in a directory named AbiSuite.

Login at the application server and look for AbiSuite with the whereis utility:

whereis AbiSuite

It should report something like /opt/AbiSuite or /usr/local/AbiSuite. Change to that directory and run the ls utility. You will see a fonts directory under the AbiSuite directory.

Next, return to /etc, and with a text editor, open the /etc/exports file. Below the line you added in part 3 to export your CD-ROM, add a line to export the fonts directory -- adjust this to reflect the actual location of the fonts directory on your system -- in our example it might be:

/usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts (ro)

Save your changes to /etc/exports. The easiest way to cause Linux to read this file and make it available for export is a reboot.

Now, sit down at an X terminal, kill X with Ctrl + Alt + Backspace and login as root. Create an empty fonts directory on the X terminal's hard drive in precisely the same location that AbiWord's fonts are located on the application server. In this example, it will be in /usr/local, so:

cd /usr/local
mkdir AbiSuite
cd AbiSuite
mkdir fonts

Next, still seated at the X terminal machine, mount the fonts directory from the application server as an NFS partition on the mount point /mnt:

mount -t nfs 192.168.1.10:/usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts /mnt

Then:

cp /mnt/*.* /usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts/

As soon as the fonts are copied, unmount the NFS partition:

umount /mnt

And reboot the X terminal. When AbiWord is next opened, your users will get more than a mere glimpse of that ant on the splash screen. Administrators of large networks of X terminals, and any network of diskless machines, will probably prefer to run a font server somewhere on the network. But for demonstrations, home use, heterogeneous networks of different Unixes, and for that matter, most small production deployments of less than 15 or 20 workstations, this approach is a reasonable compromise between simplicity and repetitive labor.

An example of an exception to the rule about: not creating user accounts on X terminals...