MAS OS Configuration email template

OS Download and install

The OS we will use is Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) Server Edition. This has been chosen for its long support lifetime. The iso can be downloaded here:

  http://releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/ubuntu-6.06.1-server-i386.iso

There is some flexibility in the OS, but we must patch and recompile the kernel and we're already familiar with this distribution. If you'd much rather use Fedora, or something, we can probably work that out. Ubuntu has a very strong user support presence on the internet.

Installation should be straight-forward, just boot off of the CD and select Install option from the menu. There's not a lot of configuration at this stage, just some basic network stuff and disk partitioning. If you're comfortable with manipulating partitions, it is probably a wise idea to make a smallish (20-30 GB) partition for the root "/" of the file-system, and then use the rest of the free space for data (mount as "/data"). This will make it easier to replace the OS later, if that becomes desirable or necessary. The partitions should be of the variety "hda".

When creating the first user, create mce, with the standard password.

This edition of Ubuntu is a very light-weight installation, and doesn't have programming tools or a window-manager installed by default. To get started with those, you can login (on the text terminal) and then type:

  user:~#  sudo apt-get update
  Password:
  user:~#  sudo apt-get install build-essential ubuntu-desktop gdm

It will ask for your user password, not the root password. Part way through, it will also ask if you want to continue. Type 'Y'. Later still, it will ask for the Ubuntu CD again. Insert it and press [ENTER]

By default, the root account on ubuntu does not have a password (this means that no one can log in as root). Instead, privileged users can do root things on a command-by-command basis using "sudo" (as above), or can open a root shell like this:

  user:~#  sudo -s
  Password:
  root:~#

If you would rather enable the root account (so you can use "su" to get a root shell, for example), just do:

  user:~#  sudo -s
  Password:
  root:~#  passwd

and set the password.

To set up the rest of the system, we will need to ssh into that computer. To make sure ssh access is enabled for normal users, install openssh-server:

  user:~# sudo apt-get install openssh-server