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<H2><A NAME="s4">4. SuSE Server Setup</A></H2>
<P>
<!--
network install!suse server setup
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This section explains how to set up your server machine to be an install server
for SuSE Linux. You can set up any Linux distribution to be a SuSE Linux
install server, this machine does not necessarily have to be running SuSE Linux
itself.
<P>This guide starts from the point where you have a machine installed with Linux
which is already up and running and connected to your network. If you require
help with installing Linux on your server then please consult the Further
Information section of this HOWTO in
<A HREF="Network-Install-HOWTO-10.html#AppendixA">Appendix A</A>.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss4.1">4.1 Setting Up Filespace</A>
</H2>
<P>In order for your server to act as a SuSE Network Install server you will need
to put on all the required data that will be needed to perform a full
installation of the SuSE version you are serving. For example, if you are used
to installing SuSE using CDs then you will need space on your server to copy
<EM>ALL</EM> the contents of each CD onto your server.
<P>So, before you even think about setting up your machine as an install server,
you must check that you have the required space available. This sounds like a
trivial thing to check but it is very important and easily forgotten when you're
setting up.
<P>
<P>
<H3>How much space will you need?</H3>
<P>A guide for the amount of space that you will require will be the amount or
space of install media that you are intending to copy from later. This might be
one of the following examples:
<P>
<UL>
<LI>Number of CDs x 650Mb</LI>
<LI>Number of ISO images x 650Mb</LI>
<LI>One DVD which might be roughly 5Gb</LI>
</UL>
<P>
<P>
<H3>How much space do you have?</H3>
<P>You will need the appropriate amount of space available to your system on some
local filesystem. It does not matter what form this takes, whether it's a RAID
device, local disk (either SCSI or IDE), etc. Ensure that the space you intend
to use is formatted with your chosen filesystem and is mounted.
<P>You can check this space with the command:
<PRE>
df -h
</PRE>
<P>If this output shows you have enough space to copy your install media then
great, you can continue installation. If not then it's time to think about an
upgrade to your intended server machine!
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss4.2">4.2 Copy Installation Media</A>
</H2>
<P>Once you know you have enough space available it's time to start copying your
install media to your chosen filesystem and directory. For the purposes of this
HOWTO we will use the following example to represent the directory from which
our install server will be setup and running:
<PRE>
/install
</PRE>
<P>Copy your install media to <CODE>/install</CODE>. The following example shows you how to do
this for copying your SuSE CD images to <CODE>/install</CODE>:
<OL>
<LI>Mount your CD<BR>e.g. <CODE>mount /mnt/cdrom</CODE></LI>
<LI>Copy the data from CD<BR>e.g. <CODE>cp -av /mnt/cdrom /install</CODE></LI>
<LI>Unmount the CD<BR>e.g. <CODE>umount /mnt/cdrom</CODE></LI>
<LI>Now swap CDs and repeat from step 1 for each of your CDs you have.</LI>
<LI>Ensure that you have the dot files from the root directory of each CD copied over to <CODE>/install</CODE></LI>
</OL>
<P>Now you should have all you need in <CODE>/install</CODE> but if you have copied
from CD then as far as SuSE is concerned the <CODE>/install</CODE> directory still
represents a set of CD images that you have copied. You need to change this
such that the set of CD images appears as a single installation medium. Use
the following Perl command to do this:
<PRE>
perl -pi -e 's/InstPath:\t\d+/InstPath:\t01/' /install/suse/setup/descr/common.pkd
</PRE>
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss4.3">4.3 Enable Remote Access</A>
</H2>
<P>Time to make your install data available to other machines on the network.
<P>
<P>
<H3>NFS</H3>
<P>SuSE is best installed over the network using NFS since support for the HTTP and
FTP protocols is not necessarily supported during installation, even though later
system updates may be applied over HTTP or FTP.
<P>To install over NFS you need to meet certain conditions on the server:
<UL>
<LI>Your install directory is exported</LI>
<LI>NFS is installed and running</LI>
<LI>Portmap is running</LI>
</UL>
<P>To export your install directory edit the <CODE>/etc/exports</CODE> file and add an
entry for <CODE>/install</CODE> to it. In our example, we would use the folowing
line:
<PRE>
/install *(ro)
</PRE>
When you have saved your exports file you must then get your NFS daemon to read
its configuration file again in order to export the directory you just added.
Do this by running the command:
<PRE>
exportfs -r
</PRE>
This gives us the most simple read-only export to all hosts on our network. If
you want to include more advanced options in your export e.g. only exporting to
certain hosts on the network or a certain subnet, etc then see your man page for
the exports file at exports (5).
<P>You have now completed the basic setup of your install server.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="susecustomrpm"></A> <A NAME="ss4.4">4.4 Package Customisation </A>
</H2>
<P>You can, if you wish, add your own packages to the SuSE distribution so that
they are installed along with SuSE over the network when you install your
clients. The advantage of this is that you don't have to spend time
configuring each machine for packages that you may want installed that are
not included with SuSE. Examples of this might be your own RPM packages that
you have created or some specialised package.
<P>Simply copy your RPM package files into the following directory
<PRE>
/install/suse/custom
</PRE>
<EM>NOTE: you may need to create this directory if it does not exist</EM>
<P>Your custom RPM packages should now be available to the clients.
<P>
<P>
<P>
<P>
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