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 aptitude 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]
• For DNS servers, enter (in this order) marcos.mayfirst.org, loiret, a HE server, and a verizon dns server:

  209.51.163.29 209.51.169.83 65.19.176.2 151.202.0.85
  

• 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:
  • 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 the 250 MB RAID device: Filesystem: ext3, mount on /boot

Remaining: Physical Volume for LVM

• Encrypt the larger, remaining device.
• Choose "Congifure LVM" (selecting the device encrypted in the previous step)
• 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.