NOTE: This method is not for experienced System administrators, who happen to have or are willing to setup a PXE boot Server. If you can boot from a PXE server, no media required, please do so, and don’t follow this method. For more information on why this method may be completely wrong and a waste of your time read this post: How Not to Install Linux by Demetri J. Mouratis

This is a step by step, with screen shots of the Installation of Ubuntu 7.10 Server edition. Installation takes less then 15 minutes, depending on your system, speed of optical drive and amount of time the server spends waiting for you to hit next.

For more information on Ubuntu server, visit their website at http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition

The hardware used is an entry level Dell PowerEdge Servers, brand new out of the box. The model is SC440, and very pleased to announce no driver issues at this point. The system shipped with an Intel Dual Core Pentium and 512 meg of ram. It is highly recommended to upgrade the ram, and this system will be maxed to out the full 4 gig when the shipment arrives from Crucial.com later this week.

Step 0. Download Ubuntu CD Image,
The CD Image, in ISO format, can be downloaded from http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download Make sure you choose the correct “type computer you have”, in our case it is 64bit installation.

Next, burn ISO to CD, this can vary greatly depending on the operating system you are on, the software you have and the type of cd or dvd you may be burning. I suggest searching Google for a detailed step by step guide just for this portion.

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burn cd iso windows vista
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I used Disc Juggler, which is available as a demo. The demo has a file size cap as well as a speed cap, but it does a fine job burning the ISO image, and doesn’t generate many coasters.

Step 1. Boot the Server from the CD,
Insert the CD into the servers optical drive. Depending on your configuration you may need to hit f11 to enter the boot device option screen. Once the CD has booted this is the first screen you should see:

Go ahead and choose Install to the Hard Disk, by hitting Enter.

Step 2. Choose Your Language,
If you are reading this, then we will assume that English will be an acceptable language, but feel free to choose the language you are most comfortable with to continue the installation.

Step 3. Choose your Country,
Ubuntu assumed, correctly, that due to our language selection of English we where in an English speaking country, so provides a list of well known English speaking Countries. Choose your country, or if not listed choose other and find it that way.

Step 4. Detect the keyboard layout,
This is a step, where I think choosing from a list is much easier then pressing half of the keys on the keyboard, so I just choose no to detect, and choose US English from the list.

Step 5. Choose Keyboard Layout from List,
Just scroll down to the correct keyboard layout, for us it is U.S. English

Step 6. Choose Exactly Which Keyboard Layout You Want,
Due to variations of English, there are multiple U.S. English keyboard layouts, so choose the one which is best for you. Here I choose plain everyday U.S. English

Step 7. Wait…
Give Ubuntu a chance to detect the hardware to find your CD-Rom drive.

Step 8. Still Waiting….
Remember We are Install a Complete Operating System, it does take time, but shouldn’t take more then 15 to 20 minutes on newer hardware.

Step 9. Almost There…
Maybe I didn’t need 3 steps for waiting, but just to give people an idea of the time it takes to complete this portion.

Step 10. Enter your server name,
Enter a good server name, remember you may find yourself typing it a lot so short is good, but not too short. UBTUSRV is good NEWSERVERFORVIRTUALIZATION is probably too long anyway. I just used the suggested, as it is the only Ubuntu server on the network.
If you are starting to deploy a massive server farm read this first and this short article

Step 11. Partition your Primary Storage Medium
Choosing the use entire disk is simple, and rather painless for the newbie administrator. If you are going to be using multiple disk or raid arrays may want to put some thought into this step.

Step 12. Choose Which Disk to Partition,
Finally the truth comes out, I’m actually taking these screen shots inside of VMware server Virtual Machine. So you can see my only choice is the virtual hard drive. I ran the installation through on the machine, installed VMware Server and now running back through the installation to capture the screen shots for this post. BTW, choose which ever disk is correct for you.

Step 13. Finalize Partition Settings,
Choose Yes to continue if the partition settings are correct. Remember if you are following along at home, your settings may be slightly different as I’m running inside of a Virtual Machine.

Step 14. Wait for it…
Depending on the size of your partition, and the complexity and speed of your hard drive, this section may take some time. Get yourself a nice cup of Tea you deserve it. Just think of the money you are saving the company by using open source software, and the extra job security you have by not letting anyone else know the passwords.

Step 15. Choose Your Time Zone,
Not really a hard choice, just make sure you know where on Earth you are.

Step 16. More Configuring the Clock
Now this may be a tricky setting, so prehaps some google links will help. Ubuntu is willing to let you have your Computer Hardware clock on UTC then run an offset of that for all time functions. Now that isn’t a problem, unless you are dual booting, and you shouldn’t be dual booting a server, but if you are, check your other operating systems to see if they support UTC time. Check out this for more information if you are still unsure: Google.com UTC Time Linux. Also note, you may want to add a post it note to change your server time to UTC if you choose yes to this setting, but it isn’t currently set to UTC.

Step 17. Finally User Account
Enter the Full Name of the primary user account. Remember, Ubuntu doesn’t use a root account normally. Check for yourself if you don’t believe me Google.com Root Account Ubuntu.
So enter in your primary user’s full name, for this example I used ‘x86Virtualization’.
.

Step 18. Enter the login username now
Username must start with lowercase letter, and may contain any combination of Numbers and letters following. For the ubber geek, this is the regular expression: [a-z][a-z0-9]* (or something like that).

Step 19. Enter the password, Don’t forget it,
Enter the password you want to use for the primary account which you have been entering information for recently, yes that account. Not the account you are going to make later or the root account which doesn’t exist. This regular expression I’m less sure on, but something like this: [a-zA-Z0-9\?\|\!\@\#\$\%\^\&\*\(\)\-\+\=]+

Step 20. Re-enter your Password
Re-enter your password, the one you just.

Step 21. Time to start waiting
Just be patient and wait.

Step 22. Keep Waiting
Just wait.

Step 23. More Waiting
Don’t worry, not to much longer now. Probably a great time to write your boss an e-mail about a raise.

Step 24. Just About Done,
You could Digg this article while you wait, just scroll down to the bottom and click the Digg button.

Step 25. Almost There, you can see the finish line,
Don’t forget to register to Vote, if you are a True American

Step 26. Just a little Big longer
Ok, maybe I took a few too many screenshots, but they where so pretty and easy.

Step 27. Wake Up.. Input needed
Time to do your magic, down, down, down, space, tab, enter (for those old school gamer in you).

Step 28. Did you follow the directions?
The only package we want to install is openssh server, so we can remotely access this system when we are done. Remember the LAMP will be inside of a virtual machine, along with any of the other features you may want. If you forget to choose Openssh Server, don’t worry you can install later by using the command
Sudo apt-get install openssh-server
Here is the correct selection, did you follow the directions?

Step 29. Installing Software
You made the right choice, by choosing open source Ubuntu Server 7.10, now give it a little time to install itself.

Step 30. Installing more great Free Software
Just think of those wonderful FREE open source command line tools which will be at your fingertips shortly. Long live VI.

Step 31. Installing Grub
Time for a quick snack… lets see what the accountant left in the fridge.

Step 32. Congratulations are in Order
You have completed the installation, please remove the media from the machine and reboot.

Step 33. If your screen looks like this,
You did everything correctly and you deserve the raise.

Step 34. Welcome to Ubuntu Server 7.10
This is what a standard Ubuntu Server looks like, trust me I have seen 2 of them, so I know. You don’t get a pretty login, or gui, or fancy mouse, just a quick list of boot up items. BTW, if you hit enter you do get a login prompt, but why login locally, when you can go down the street to the local coffee shop and administer this machine from there with SSH. More on that later.

This completes Part 1 of a Multiple Part Series on Ubuntu, VMware and Virtualization. In the following week I will be posting part 2, the actual installation of VMware Server on Ubuntu Server, so stand by. If you subscribe to the RSS Feed, you will be notified instantly of any new post on x86Virtualization.com or signup for the e-mail feed alerts, powered by feedburner.

Thanks for Reading,
x86Virtualization.com

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