Scientific Linux v6.2 Network Install

• SL 6.2 32 bit Boot image 161 MB - Burn this to a CDROM and it will boot the install program.
• SL 6.2 64 bit Boot image 197 MB - Burn this to a CDROM and it will boot the install program.
• Copy the ISO to a USB drive using unetbootin or dd. This will make the USB drive bootable. Also, the 7z compression program is required to read the ISO file. unetbootin is free software and is available for Windows or Linux. Get it at unetbootin.sourceforge.net Be sure and use a USB drive that has a FAT32 partition (type 0b as read by fdisk) on partition 1.
  
  
• Use curie.seas.virginia.edu as the HTTP install site.
  
  
• Use
  sci.linux/6.2.32bit for the 32bit install location and
  
  sci.linux/6.2.64bit as the 64bit install location.
  
  Click here to make sure the 32 bit DVD is mounted.
  
  Click here to make sure the 64 bit DVD is mounted.

Upgrade from your current harddrive

• If you don't have a CD Burner handy or don't have a CD player in your Linux box, here is an alternative procedure.
  
  Download the boot image (referenced above) to your Linux machine. Mount it with these commands:

  
  mkdir /tmp/c4
  mount -o loop -t iso9660 boot.iso /tmp/c4
  cd /tmp/c4
  mkdir /boot/sl62
  cp -r -v * /boot/sl62
  sync
  cd
  umount /tmp/c4
  
  
  Then modify your /etc/grub.conf file so you can boot off this image:
  
  default=0
  timeout=10
  splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
  title Fedora Core 2 (2.4.xxx)
          root (hd0,2)
          kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.xxx ro root=LABEL=/
          initrd /initrd-2.4.xxx.img
  title upgrade to Sci.Linux 6.2
          root (hd0,2)
          kernel /sl62/vmlinuz ro root=LABEL=/
          initrd /sl62/initrd.img
  
  
  The 2nd boot choice "upgrade to Sci.Linux 6.2"  is what is added.
  Make sure the "root (hd0,2)" line that you add  matches the 
  line in your working boot 
  and that the "root=LABEL=/" value also matches.
  
  

When done, see the system administration notes for using "yum" to keep your system patched.

Worksheet for Installing a new Linux



Rescue Instructions:

Caution: The rescue CDROM must be the same version as the rescue image.

That means if your boot CDROM is Centos 4.3 and you use a Centos 4.6 network image, it will not work. The simple fix is to make a new boot CDROM from the network images that are available. You can perform rescue functions on a Centos 4 system with Centos 5 image. Your rescue image must be able to identify and mount the / filesystem on your damaged PC. Red Hat and Knoppix rescue CDROM's are compatible because they all recognize the default ext2 and ext3 filesystems.

For example, if your damaged system was created with Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 3, you can make a boot CDROM from either the Centos 4 or 5 distributions listed on this page and boot your Red Hat system in rescue mode.

Hook the PC to the UVA ethernet and boot from a CDROM created from the Centos CD image. Pick Linux Rescue as your boot option. Your image source is HTTP. The server is curie.seas.virginia.edu. The directory is the directory you used for installation. Get a IP address automatically for your PC from the DHCP server.

When the PC goes to a command prompt, it will have found your system and you get a superuser # prompt.

As a safety measure, write down the partition information for your Linux system. The important information is the filesystem type (ext2) and the physical disc partition (/dev/sda3). Get this information by typing mount from an xterm window:


Sample mount output:

/dev/sda3 on / type ext2 (rw,usrquota)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext2 (rw,usrquota)

Also write down the ethernet driver used by your ethernet card. This can be determined by typing lsmod.


Sample lsmod output:  (3c59x is the 3com ethernet driver)

Module                  Size  Used by
ide-cd                 27072   0  (autoclean)
cdrom                  28576   0  (autoclean) [ide-cd]
nls_iso8859-1           2816   2  (autoclean)
smbfs                  36576   2  (autoclean)
soundcore               4452   0  (autoclean)
nfs                    79840   4  (autoclean)
lockd                  53184   1  (autoclean) [nfs]
sunrpc                 64816   1  (autoclean) [nfs lockd]
3c59x                  26504   1
vfat                   10332   0  (autoclean)
fat                    32984   0  (autoclean) [vfat]



Do what you need to do and reboot.

If you have installed Windows after RH Linux, type "grub-install" and it will write the boot information to your harddisk. Make sure /etc/grub.conf points to your Linux and Windows root file systems. A typical grub.conf file for a dual-boot PC would look like:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,5)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda7
#          initrd /initrd-version.img

#default values start at 0
#here RHL is 0 and Win2000 is 1
default=1
#
#
timeout=50
#
# grub partitions start at 0 whereas fdisk starts at 1 so 
# note that (hd0,5) is really /dev/hda6
#

splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux
        root (hd0,5)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-27.9 ro root=LABEL=/
        initrd /initrd-2.4.20-27.9.img
title Win2000
        root (hd0,0)
        makeactive
        chainloader +1

Knoppix Rescue Instructions:

Get the latest Knoppix CDROM image (version 5.1). Boot off this CD. When you get to a stable X-windows desktop, notice that all your harddrives are shown on the desktop as icons. Click on the icon to mount it. Fix what you need to fix to boot normally.

You can boot to the character based login by typing "knoppix 3" when the CD loads and asks for your load command.

You can also use this CDROM to boot a damaged Windows system with NTFS formatted harddrive. Knoppix always includes the module to mount a NTFS volume read/only.

Recovering files from a PC that has an NT file system

• Boot the failing computer from a Knoppix cdrom to the GUI. Have an active network cable attached to the PC while it boots and Knoppix will assign the PC a dynamic IP address. When the boot process is finished, the sceren looks like a Windows desktop. All the drives that were found are displayed on the desktop. Click on each one to see which one is your C: drive. The drives will have labels like Hard Drive [hda1] or Hard Drive [sda1].
• Desktop for Knoppix v4
  
  
  
• The explorer window will show you all the details of the "C: drive". Navigate to the directory where your critical data is stored.
  
  For example: Pretend your data is in /mnt/sda2/users/rtg2t/2009/.
  
  
• Explorer Window
  
  
• Open a konsole command window.
  
  
• Type
  cd /mnt/sda2/users/rtg2t/2009/
  
  
• Then copy this data to blue unix with the command:
  
  scp -r * rtg2t@blue.unix.virginia.edu:/home/rtg2t
  
  Since you don't know my password, use your blue unix account.
  
  
• You can also insert a USB harddrive or USB memory stick at this point, and Knoppix will recognize it and display it on the desktop. Click on it to mount it and drag and drop files from the harddrive to the USB storage device.