Setting up Fedora

Introduction

This article explains how to install Fedora from a boot CD and fetch files from an FTP server.

Setup

If you don't want to burn five CD's or a DVD, you can just burn a CD with boot.iso (a.k.a. netinst.iso; Yes, it's 250MB), boot from this small image, and fetch files from an FTP server close to you.

  1. After burning the ISO, use this CD to boot the computer
  2. Choose the basic option, and TAB to append "askmethod" to the boot command
  3. A list of mirrors can be found at http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors.html. Aim at where the /os directory is located, eg. http://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/fedora/linux/releases/13/Fedora/i386/os

    Important: If you get a "Unable to receive install.img" error, use a HTTP server instead of FTP. Also, if you get an error while downloading one of the RPM's, just hit Retry: It might just be a network glitch

  4. Follow the wizard to install Fedora. A complete installation documentation can be found here

    Note: If the Ethernet interface isn't up after logging on locally, here's how to configure Fedora to start Ethernet automatically at boot time: chkconfig network on
     
  5. Update through "yum update"
  6. To update the kernel and kernel-devel packages, you might see yum downloading mismatched files (eg. i686 for kernel, i586 for kernel-devel), so you're better off downloading RPMs and updating locally. Reboot and use this new kernel
  7. Install NTP to keep the server synchronized:
    1. yum install ntp
    2. vim /etc/ntp.conf to allow all hosts on network 192.168.0/24 to sync with the server:

      restrict 192.168.0.0 mask 255.255.255.0 nomodify notrap
       
    3. Sync the server a couple of times, and wait a few minutes:

      ntpdate -u 0.pool.ntp.org
      ntpdate -u 0.pool.ntp.org
       
    4. Launch ntp:

      /sbin/service ntpd start
    5. Add ntp to the list of services launched at boot time:

      chkconfig ntpd on
    6. To sync Windows host, read this
  8. Done. 

Adding multiple mirrors for yum to use

Edit /etc/yum.conf

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=fedora-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=0
# Added this because some mirrors go down and then retying takes forever.
retries=1
# Uncomment below if you want to autoupdate also the kernel rpms (reboot is necessary to use the new kernel, once installed)
# exclude=kernel*
 
## Basic Fedora ####################
 
[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=ftp://ftp.proxad.net/mirrors/fedora.redhat.com/fedora/linux/core/5/i386/os/
        http://ftp.lip6.fr/ftp/pub/linux/distributions/fedora/5/i386/os/
        ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/fedora/linux/core/5/i386/os
        http://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os
        http://rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/core/$releasever/$basearch/os
        http://mirror.clarkson.edu/pub/distributions/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os
        http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/fedora/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.os
    
[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
baseurl=ftp://ftp.proxad.net/mirrors/fedora.redhat.com/fedora/linux/core/updates/5/i386
        http://ftp.lip6.fr/ftp/pub/linux/distributions/fedora/updates/5/i386/
        ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/fedora/linux/core/updates/5/i386
        http://ftp.ens.utulsa.edu/pub/linux/fedora/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch
        http://rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch
        http://mirror.clarkson.edu/pub/distributions/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch
        http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/fedora/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.updates
 
## Fedora Extras #####################
 
[fedora-stable]
name=Fedora.us Extras (Stable)
baseurl=http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora.us/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable
        http://fedora.quicknet.nl/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable
        http://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/fedora/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable
        http://fedora.mirror.sdv.fr/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable
        http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable

Using Yum to manage packages

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7448

Command:

The following are the ways which you can invoke yum in list mode.  Note that all list commands include information on the version of the package.

All the list options mentioned above take file-glob-syntax wildcards or package names as arguments,  for example yum list available ’foo*’ will list all available packages that match ’foo*’. (The single quotes will keep your shell from expanding the globs.

The following are the ways which you can invoke yum in clean mode. Note that "all files" in the commands  below means  "all  files  in  currently  enabled repositories".  If you want to also clean any (temporarily) disabled repositories you need to use --enablerepo=’*’ option. 

yum clean packages

              Eliminate any cached packages from the system.  Note that packages are not automatically  deleted  after

              they are downloaded.

 

       yum clean headers

              Eliminate all of the header files which yum uses for dependency resolution.

 

       yum clean metadata

              Eliminate  all  of the files which yum uses to determine the remote availability of packages. Using this

              option will force yum to download all the metadata the next time it is run.

 

       yum clean cache

              Eliminate the pickle based cache used for faster access to metadata.  Using this option will  force  yum

              to recreate the cache the next time it is run if you don’t have sqlite available.

 

       yum clean dbcache

              Eliminate  the  sqlite  cache  used  for faster access to metadata.  Using this option will force yum to

              recreate the cache the next time it is run.

 

       yum clean all

              Runs yum clean packages and yum clean headers as above.

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