Basic Red Hat Linux Server Guide

Basic Red Hat Linux Server Guide
Posted :: Jun 15, 2004 by Impact

Linux: For all of you out there who have always wanted to try it out, I'm here to give you a place to start.

Linux is an operating system. What sets Linux apart from other operating systems like Microsoft Windows, and MacOS is the fact that it is Open-Source. Open-Source means that the source code is publicly available for anyone to look at and edit. It is a fully customizable, very powerful, command-line based operating system. Because Linux is open-source, many people have added their own twist to it, and due to this, there are many different versions. Some of the more popular versions are: Red Hat Linux, Mandrake Linux, Fedora Core (based on Red Hat), Debian, and Gentoo Linux. I was planning on using Mandrake Linux for my tutorial, but due to a problem with my graphics card I switched to Red Hat.

The first step of the journey into the Linux world is to decide what version to use, and then to find a copy of that version. The website http://www.linuxiso.org has quite a few versions. It has both Mandrake and Red Hat as well as a handful of others.

Red Hat is the way to go for new users. Mandrake is another good choice, it has a GUI, but for this guide I will be using RedHat. If you are used to a GUI (Graphical User Interface) such as Windows or MacOS, you will feel right at home with the Red Hat installer.
Edited: Very sorry about saying Mandrake's Installer was "all text based". I must have hit a wrong key. I have tried reinstalling Mandrake and there is a GUI installer. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

During installation it asks the user to select the components he/she wishes to use with the operating system. There are many built-in abilities for Linux. The most important for me was the ability to set up FTP, HTTP, and mail servers. While you can select them to be installed in the installation, I chose not to. While it would be nice having the servers set up as soon as we booted into Linux, I was planning on getting the newest version of each server program. Sometimes things can get a bit muddy when you install new packages over the previously installed versions. Also during the installation it prompts for two users, the "root" user and a personal user. The root user access is for the administrator and the root password is needed to edit settings for most system related issues.

If you are worried about Linux being "Command-Line" based, fear not. Most current versions of Linux include a user GUI. This allows Linux to be used like any other, perhaps more familiar, operating system. Users can point, click, and run programs in Red Hat Linux just like Windows or MacOS. A few other features like a graphical web browser (similar to Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Opera), a text-based web browser, text editors, developement tools (programming), and games are also available options to select during installation.

Note: Make sure to install the developer packages (these are used to compile source scripts). Without them you won't be able to install some programs down the road.

I decided to install all three desktops (KDE, X Window, and GNOME), system tools, development tools, games, and graphics programs. If you plan to follow this guide to make a Linux Server, make sure to install the system tools, server administrator tools, and the development tools.

The rest of this article will be a guide to configuring an operating system that will eventually turn into a server. By the end of the article I (and you too!) will have a server computer that is capable of running Apache, PHP, MySQL, Perl, FTP server, and File Server (internal network). Expect to see a lot of screen shots, a lot of common problems, and many solutions.

Depending on your selection of Server components at the install prompt, your journey through Red Hat may differ slightly from mine. For example: If you installed the MySQL Server through Red Hat, you will do things in the same order as I do. If you didn't install the MySQL server, you will get an error message when trying to compile PHP with MySQL. To solve this issue, skip ahead to the MySQL section, install MySQL and then go back and finish installing PHP.

Lets get started!