How to Install Linux on VMWare

1. Insert the “Linux Disk 1″ CD into the laptop’s CD-ROM drive.

a. To set up the CD installation media for VMware, in the “Summary” panel
of the VMware window, double-click the “CD-ROM 1 (IDE 1:0)” icon.

i. Select “Use ISO image:”
ii. Click the “Browse…” button.

1. Browse to the “\iso” directory on the CD-ROM and choose the
“rhel-5-U2-i386-as-disc1.iso” file.

iii. Click “OK”.

2. In the VMware window, click the green arrow to start the VM.

Note: You should NOT be rebooting your laptop here.  You should only
be starting the VM inside the VMware window on you Windows XP
desktop.

3. As soon as the VM starts booting up, click the “Enters Full Screen Mode”
icon on the VMware toolbar (second icon from the right).

Note: This causes all subsequent mouse and keyboard input to be sent
to the VM instead of Windows XP.  To “release” the mouse and
keyboard (allowing input to return to Windows XP), press
CTRL-ALT.

4. After entering full-screen mode, wait until the “Red Hat Enterprise Linux”
boot prompt appears.

a. Press ENTER at the “boot:” prompt.

Note: If you don’t press ENTER within 60 seconds, the installer will
automatically go to the next step.  This is ok!

5. Screen: “CD Found”
a. Press TAB until “Skip” is highlighted.
b. Press ENTER.

Note: Choose “OK” instead of “Skip” if you wish to test the installation
media.

A graphical screen will start to do the rest of the install.

6. Screen: “Welcome to Red Hat Enterprise Linux”
a. Click “Next”.

7. Screen: “Language Selection”
a. Choose your preferred Language for running the installer.
b. Click “Next”.

8. Screen: “Keyboard Configuration”

a. Select the layout based on the following:
In the US:  You should normally choose “U.S. English”
Elsewhere:  Choose the most appropriate layout for your country.

b. Click “Next”.

9. Screen: “Mouse Configuration”
a. Model: Select “3 Button Mouse (PS/2)”.

Note:  Because we are using VMware, you must select the PS/2 style mouse,
even if your laptop has a USB mouse physically installed.
However, if we were installing on a real machine, we would
choose the appropriate mouse type here.

b. Device: This box should be greyed out, so no selection is necessary.
c. Leave the “Emulate 3 buttons” checkbox unselected.
d. Click “Next”.

10. Screen: “Disk Partitioning Setup”
a. Select “Manually partition with Disk Druid”.
b. Click “Next”.
c. Dialog box: “The partition table on device ??? was unreadable…
Would you like to initialize this drive?”

i. Click “Yes”.

Note: This dialog box will appear 5 times: for “sda”, “sdb”, “sdc”
, “sdd” and “sde”.  Click “Yes” for each one.

11. Screen: “Disk Setup”

a. In the lower right portion of the screen, double click the “Free
space” under “/dev/sda”.

i. Mount Point: Select “/” from pulldown menu.
ii. Filesystem Type: Leave default “ext3″ selected.
iii. Leave all other options unchanged.
iv. Click “OK”.

b. In the lower right portion of the screen, double click the “Free
space” under “/dev/sdb”.

i. Mount Point: Leave this field blank.
ii. Filesystem Type: Select “swap” from the pulldown menu.
iii. Leave all other options unchanged.
iv. Click “OK”.

c. In the lower right portion of the screen, double click the “Free
space” under “/dev/sdc”.

i. Mount Point: Type in “/opt/oracle”.
ii. Filesystem Type: Leave default “ext3″ selected.
iii. Leave all other options unchanged.
iv. Click “OK”.

d. Leave “/dev/sdd” & “/dev/sde” unpartitioned.  We’ll deal with that later.
sdd will be for OCFS data
sde will be for raw device practice

e. Click “Next”.

12. Screen: “Boot Loader Configuration”
a. The GRUB boot loader should be selected by default.
b. Leave the “Use a boot loader password” checkbox unselected.
c. Leave the “Configure advanced boot loader options” checkbox unselected.
d. Click “Next”.

13. Screen: “Network Configuration”

a. Network Devices

i. Select “eth0″ and click “Edit”.
1. De-select “Configure using DHCP”.
2. Leave “Activate on boot” selected.
3. IP Address: Enter “192.168.0.11″.
4. Netmask: Enter “255.255.255.0″.
5. Click “Ok”.

ii. Select “eth1″ and click “Edit”.
1. De-select “Configure using DHCP”.
2. Select “Activate on boot”.
3. IP Address: Enter “192.168.1.11″.
4. Netmask: Enter “255.255.255.0″.
5. Click “Ok”.

b. Hostname

i. Select “manually”
ii. Enter “linux1.oracle.com”.

Note: Always enter a fully-qualified domain name for the server
hostname, otherwise some Oracle products may not work
properly.

c. Miscellaneous Settings

i. Gateway: Enter “192.168.1.1″.
ii. Primary DNS: Enter “138.35.249.41″.
iii. Secondary DNS: Enter “138.35.249.52″.
iv. Ternary DNS: Enter “140.2.202.15″.

Note:  The three DNS servers given below are for the Oracle US East
region and are only available within the Oracle intranet.  If
you run this machine outside the Oracle intranet, you will
need to use different DNS servers.  If you need to change
the DNS servers after installation is complete, you can edit
the list in /etc/resolv.conf.

d. Click “Next”.

14. Screen: “Firewall Configuration”
a. Select “No firewall”.

Note: In this class, we have chosen “No firewall” to simplify
configuration.  In a real-world Oracle installation, choose
the firewall configuration that is most appropriate for the
security policies where the server is being deployed.

b. Click “Next”.

15. Screen: “Additional Language Support”
a. Select any additional languages you may want to use on this server.
b. Click “Next”.

16. Screen: “Time Zone Selection”
a. Select the most appropriate time-zone from the list at the bottom or
on the graphical map at the top.
b. Leave the “System clock uses UTC” checkbox unselected.
c. Click “Next”.

17. Screen: “Set Root Password”
a. Root Password/Confirm: Enter “oracle”.
b. Click “Next”.

18. Screen: “Package Installation Defaults”
a. Select “Customize the set of packages to be installed”
b. Click “Next”.

19. Screen: “Package Group Selection”
a. Under the “Applications” heading:
i. Select “Editors”.
ii. Click “Details” to the right of the “Editors” entry.
1. De-select the “Emacs” checkbox (to save space).
2. Click “OK”.

b. Under the “Servers” heading:
i. Select “FTP Server”

c. Under the “Development” heading:
i. Select “Development Tools”.
ii. Select “Legacy Software Development”.

Note:  You MUST include these software development package options
here for any server which will have Oracle software installed.
Without the “Software Development” option installed, the
installation of Oracle software will fail.

d. Under the “System” heading:
i. Select “System Tools”.
ii. Click “Details” to the right of the “System Tools” entry.
1. Scroll down under “Optional Packages” and select the “sysstat”
checkbox.
2. Click “OK”.

e. Click “Next”.

20. Screen: “About to Install”
a. Click “Next”.

21. Screen: “Installing Packages”

a. After formatting the filesystems (a few minutes), CD will be done.
b. Dialog box: “Please insert disc 2 to continue.”
i. Press CTRL-ALT to leave full-screen mode.
ii. Eject the current CD and insert “T3 Disc 2″.
iii. Select “Edit” –> “Virtual Machine Settings…” from the VMware
menu (or press CTRL-D) to open the “Virtual Machine Control Panel”.
1. Click the “CD-ROM 1 (IDE 1:0)” icon.
2. Click the “Browse…” button under “Use ISO image:” and choose
the “rhel-5-i386-disc2.iso” file in the CD’s “\iso” directory.
3. Click “OK”.
iv. Click the “Enters Full Screen Mode” icon on the VMware toolbar.
v. Click “OK”.

c. After 1278MB/494 packages completed (about 30 min), CD will be done.
d. Dialog box: “Please insert disc 3 to continue.”
i. Repeat step ‘21.b.’ above, using the “rhel-5-i386-disc3.iso” file.

e. After 1753MB/647 packages completed (about 10 min), CD will be done.
f. Dialog box: “Please insert disc 4 to continue.”
i. Repeat step ‘21.b.’ above, using the “rhel-5-i386-disc4.iso” file

g. After 1848MB/648 packages completed (about 1 min), CD will be done.
h. Dialog box: “Please insert disc 1 to continue.”
i. Repeat step ‘21.b.’ above, using the “rhel-5-U1-i386-as-disc1.iso”
i. Files will continue copying for about 1 more minute.

22. Screen: “Graphical Interface (X) Configuration”
a. Leave “VMWare” selected.
b. Leave “Video Card RAM” at the default.
c. Leave the “Skip X configuration” checkbox unselected.
d. Click “Next”.

23. Screen: “Monitor Configuration”
a. For a laptop display, expand the “Generic LCD Display” category.
b. Choose “LCD Panel 1024×768″ (or the most appropriate size for your
display.
c. Click “Next”.

24. Screen: “Customize Graphics Configuration”
a. Color Depth: Select “High Color (16 Bit)”.
b. Screen Resolution: Select the screen resolution you prefer.
c. Click “Next”.

25. Screen: “Congratulations”
a. Click “Exit”.
b. CD will eject automatically and Linux will reboot.

26. (After reboot) Screen: “Welcome”
a. Click “Next”.

27. Screen: “License Agreement”
a. Select “Yes, I agree to the License Agreement”.
b. Click “Next”.

28. Screen: “Date and Time”
a. Adjust the current date and time if necessary.
b. Leave the “Enable Network Time Protocol” checkbox unselected.
c. Click “Next”.

29. Screen: “User Account”
a. Leave all fields blank.  We’ll create the oracle user later.
b. Click “Next”.
c. Dialog Box: “Warning…”
i. Click “Continue”.

30. Screen: “Sound Card”
a. Click “Next”.

31. Screen: “Red Hat Network”
a. Select “No, I do not want to register my system.”
b. Click “Next”.

32. Screen: “Additional CDs”
a. Click “Next”.

33. Screen: “Finish Setup”
a. Click “Next”.

Linux will continue booting and present a graphical login prompt.

34. Log in as root/oracle.

a. Start a terminal window (Main Menu –> System Tools –> Terminal).
b. To create the oracle user and groups:

i. Run “groupadd -g 500 dba”.
ii. Run “groupadd -g 501 oinstall”.
iii. Run “useradd -u 500 -g dba -G oinstall -m -s /bin/bash oracle”.
iv. Run “passwd oracle”.
1. At the “New password:” prompt, enter “oracle”.
2. Ignore the “BAD PASSWORD: it is based on a dictionary word”
warning.
3. At the “Retype new password:” prompt, enter “oracle” again.

c. To confirm the IP addresses are set correctly:
i. Public interface (eth0)
1. Run “ifconfig eth0″.
ii. Private interface (eth1)
1. Run “ifconfig eth1″.

d. Edit /etc/hosts:

i. Run “vi /etc/hosts” -OR- “nedit /etc/hosts”.
ii. Clean the 127.0.0.1 line to match the sample file below.
iii. Add 4 new lines as in sample file below.

Sample /etc/hosts contents:

192.168.0.11  linux11.oracle.com linux11
192.168.1.11  linux110.oracle.com linux110

Note: Above step could also be performed using the GUI network
configuration tool:

gnome (Start)-> Programs->System->Network Configuration
-OR-
# /usr/sbin/redhat-config-network

e. Modify kernel parameters to match Oracle10g requirements:

i. Run “vi /etc/sysctl.conf” -OR- “nedit /etc/sysctl.conf”.
ii. Add the following lines to the end of the file:

fs.file-max = 65536
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
kernel.sem = 250     32000   100     128
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range= 1024 65000
net.core.rmem_default = 262144
net.core.rmem_max = 262144
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_max = 262144

iii. Run “sysctl -p” to make the changes take effect.

f. Run “exit” to exit the terminal window.

g. To log out of the GUI (Main Menu –> Log Out):
i. Leave the “Save current setup” checkbox unselected.
ii. Action: Select “Log Out”.
iii. Click “OK”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Installation, Virtual Machine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.