Installing Debian

Ideally - you should boot using a Debian installer that uses the serial console. If you can't - just install the normal way.

Prepare your laptop - Screen

• Install screen on your debian laptop:

sudo apt-get install screen

• Connect your serial cable (or USB - serial cable) from your laptop to the server. You may want to check dmesg after plugging in the cable to see which device is being used. You should have a line along the lines of: usb 3-1: PL-2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

• Start screen with:

mkdir screen-log
cd screen-log
screen -L /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

Install Linux

Initial steps

• Put in Daniel's Serial Console debian installer and boot (note - if you don't have a serial installer, use a normal installer and a keyboard and monitor attached to the server)

• [Skipping easy steps]

• Manually partition the drive

• Remove any existing partitions.

• Add one partition (on each disk if there are two disks) that is:

250 MB
Physical volume for RAID array (or ext3 if one disk system)

• Add a second parition (on each disk if there are two disks) that is:

Takes up remaining space
Physical volume for RAID array (or Physical volume for LVM if one disk system)

• Choose "Congifure software RAID" (skip step if one disk system)

• Choose "Create MD Device"

• Choose RAID1

• Number of active devices: 2

• Number of spare devices: 0

• Now select the first partition on each device.

• Click Continue. Repeat for second partition on each device.

• When you are done, click Finish. Now you are back at the partition menu.

• Scroll down to the raid devices (or apply straight to your partitions if it's a one disk system). Modify as follows:

250 MB RAID device: Filesystem: ext3, mount on /boot
Remaining: Physical Volume for LVM

• Choose "Congifure LVM"

• Create a volume group called vg_nameofserver0

• Create logical volumes in this volume group based on your needs. A dom0 will only need a 1GB root partition. A "normal" server might need a 1 GB root, 3GB /usr, 5 GB /var and 512 MB swap.

• After returning to the main disk config menu, click on each logical volume that you create and specify how it should be formatted and mounted.

• Enter root password in resource db or give to Jamie!

• Create a second user for yourself.

• Do not install the server package or the base package - deselect all of them.

Post Install

Syn Cookies

• Enable syncookies:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies

• Preserve syncookies on reboot:

echo 'net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1' >> /etc/sysctl.conf

Install and configure mandatory packages

• Login as root and install the following packages:

# aptitude install ssh ntpdate ntp-server less emacs21-nox cron-apt iproute

• Configure cron-apt:

  echo 'MAILON="upgrade" >> /etc/cron-apt/config
  

• Upload the mayfirst public keys to:

/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

• Configure ssh to only accept connections with auth keys (unless this is a server that should be accessible by members). Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and uncomment/change this line:

PasswordAuthentication no

• Reload ssh:

# /etc/init.d/ssh reload

Fix Bash

• Overwrite /root/.bashrc with:

  # ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells.
  
  export PS1='$? \h:\w\$ '
  umask 022
  
  # You may uncomment the following lines if you want `ls' to be colorized:
  # export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto'
  # eval "`dircolors`"
  # alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS'
  # alias ll='ls $LS_OPTIONS -l'
  # alias l='ls $LS_OPTIONS -lA'
  #
  # Some more alias to avoid making mistakes:
  alias rm='rm -i'
  alias cp='cp -i'
  alias mv='mv -i
  

• Modify the following lines in /etc/skel/.bashrc

  PS1='$? ${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
      ;;
  *)
  PS1='$? ${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
  

• Add a .ssh directory and empty authorized_keys file in /etc/skel:

  mkdir /etc/skel/.ssh
  touch /etc/skel/.ssh/authorized_keys
  

Serial console login

If you did not use the serial console installer, then perform the following:

• Edit the /etc/inittab file. Uncomment and modify:

T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 115200 vt100

• Refresh:

$ sudo init q

• Add the following lines after the timeout line in /boot/grub/menu.1st

serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=10 serial console

• Add the following lines to the Start Default Options. You should already have a line such as:

# kopt=root=/dev/md0 ro

add to it, so that your final line says:

# kopt=root=/dev/md0 ro console=ttyS0,115200n8

Refresh grub:

$ sudo update-grub