Installing Debian 2.2 (Potato) on a Dell PowerEdge 2550 server. Version 1.0 Ingemar Fällman This document describes how to install Debian 2.2 on a Dell PowerEdge 2550 (pe2550) server. The latest version of this document can be found at http://www.hem.net/doc/linux/debian2.2_on_pe2550.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents 1. Copyright Notice and Disclaimer 2. Configure hardware raid 3. Installing Redhat 7.1 4. Installing Debian 2.2 5. Installing the Redhat kernel on your Debian installation 6. Debian post-installation configuration 7. Compiling a customized kernel 8. Remove Redhat 7.1 9. Trademarks 10.Feedback ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Copyright Notice and Disclaimer Copyright (c) 2001 Vännäs Webservice This document may be reproduced or distributed in any form without prior permission. Modified versions of this document may be freely distributed, provided that they are clearly identified as such, and this copyright is included intact. This document is provided "AS IS", with no express or implied warranties. Use the information in this document at your own risk. 2. Configure hardware raid Configure your hardware raid with the Dell software shipped with your PowerEdge server. Not: This is covered by the Dell documentation 3. Installing Redhat 7.1 Download Redhat 7.1 and make a very small Redhat installation, installing only the things you need to get the server starting. Not: Redhat mirrors can be found at http://www.redhat.com Create all partitions that you will use in your Debian installation. You should at least have /home on it's own partition and/or disk (or raid container). Make the Redhat installation on the partition that you later will use for /home. (This way you can install the Debian system without worrying about the Redhat installation messing things up. Not: My Redhat installation hanged while post installation and post configuration, if it does thats no problem the installation is OK anyway. Remove the floppy and/or cd-rom and reboot your PowerEdge server when the the Redhat installation is complete. 4. Installing Debian 2.2 Now you have a system up an running. However it is not the system you want ;) WE WANT DEBIAN!!! Not: Debian mirrors can be found at http://www.debian.org So we need to get the base distribution from your Debian CD or local Debian mirror. debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/base2_2.tgz No we need to create file-systems for your Debian system run mkfs.ext2 on all the other partitions to initiate them. !!WARNING!! DO NOT MKFS YOUR REDHAT PARTITION !!WARNING!! Mount your real / (the partition where you want to run Debian) in /mnt and copy base2_2.tgz there, then untar it. # cp /SomeDir/base2_2.tgz /mnt # cd /mnt # tar zxf base2_2.tgz We also need a fstab on your system so that it can boot / So put something like this in your /mnt/etc/fstab /dev/sda2 / ext2 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1 Replace /dev/sda2 to whatever partition your Debian / is on. 5. Installing the Redhat kernel on your Debian installation We now have a Debian installation, now all we need is a kernel to go with it! copy /lib/modules/*, /boot/System.map*, /boot/vmlinu*, /boot/in* # cp -rd /lib/modules /mnt/lib/modules # cp -rd /boot/System.map* /mnt/boot # cp -rd /boot/vmlinu* /mnt/boot # cp -rd /boot/ini* /mnt/boot # cp -rd /boot/modu* /mnt/boot No we need is to edit /etc/lilo.conf to enable our new Debian installation. We keep the Redhat images as backup because then we will still have a working system is something goes very wrong. So we only add a Debian image to the Redhat lilo.conf Copy one of the images (the one with the kernel you want) Change the "label" to "Debian" and change the "root" to your Debian / partition. Let's see if it works. Run lilo and if you get no errors you can reboot. 6. Debian post-installation configuration When the system boots up select Debian. Debian will now start but you will get the following message. "WARNING! You are attempting to boot an unconfigured base system. You need to configure it before proceeding. To do this, you need to reboot using the Debian Rescue disk and select the "Configure the Base System" option from the installation menu. Please make sure that the Debian Rescue Disk is in the boot floppy drive and press to reboot:" However we choose to ignore this by pressing ^C (Ctrl+C) You will get allot of strange error messages but a login-prompt will appear, and you can login as root. Before we can do anything we must remount / writable because it is no read-only # mount / -o remount,rw # mount -a Now we can start configuring the system. Select keyboard with # kbdconfig Select time-zone with # tzconfig Set hostname with # echo 'myhostname.foo.bar' > /etc/hostname Add localhost to /etc/hosts with # echo -e "127.0.0.1\tlocalhost" > /etc/hosts Configure network interfaces. There is a example of the interfaces file that we can use just copy it and then edit it to add your own settings. # cp /usr/doc/netbase/examples/interfaces /etc/network If you want to access the network you can install modules for your network interfaces now # cd /lib/modules/(Your selected kernel)/kernel/drivers/net/ # insmod your_interface_module.o # ifup -a If you want to use md5 passwords (recommended) edit /etc/pam.d/passwd and change the line password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8 to password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8 md5 You probably want to enable shadow passwords too # shadowconfig on Now you MUST! set your root password # passwd Now the system is configured so you can remove the file /sbin/unconfigured.sh Now you can run dselect and setup your sources and install whatever packages you want. Ok. so far so good, lets reboot again. 7. Compiling a customized kernel This time the system should not complain about anything except the network interface, but that is Ok because the module is not loaded. run depmod -a and modconf Now you only need to crate your own kernel. You don't have a /etc/lilo.conf so you better make one lba32 boot=/dev/sda root=/dev/sda5 install=/boot/boot.b map=/boot/map delay=20 vga=normal default=Linux image=/vmlinuz label=Linux read-only image=/vmlinuz.old label=LinuxOLD read-only optional Change root=/sda5 to whatever partition your Debian installation is on. Download kernel source from your local mirror or copy it from a cd. You need to patch the kernel with the patches from http://domsch.com/linux/ (Thanks to Matt Domsch) Just download the patches in /usr/src, unpack the linux source in /usr/src/linux and then start to patch # cd /usr/src # tar zxf linux-X.X.X.tgz # cd linux # cat ../the_first_patch | patch -p1 # cat ../the_second_patch | patch -p1 ... and so on ... Then configure and make the kernel. Don't forget to enable AACRAID and Adaptec AIC7xxx Found under SCSI support / SCSI low-level drivers Install the new kernel, run lilo and if no errors was found.. Reboot the server and hope that it will start. 8. Removing Redhat 7.1 Now Debian will boot by default and you can remove the Redhat installation and mount the partition as /home as planed. 9. Trademarks Redhat is a trademark of Red Hat Software, Inc Dell is a trademark of Dell Computer Corporation, Inc. PowerEdge is a trademark of Dell Computer Corporation, Inc. 10.Feedback Comments, corrections, additions and critiques are always welcome. You can reach me at Ingemar.Fallman@hem.net