RCHE Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide[c] Exam (Rh302)

The following are some of the key points from the certification objectives in Chapter 2.

Disk Partitions and Block Devices

• Linux has a simple naming standard for disk partitions: three letters followed by a number. The first letter reflects the type of drive (h for IDE, s for SCSI). The second letter is d for drive. The third letter represents the relative position of the disk. The number that follows is based on the relative position of the partition on the disk.

• The first IDE drive would be hda and the next hdb, then hdc and hdd.

• It's helpful to configure separate partitions for important data such as Web services, databases, FTP sites, and e-mail.

• Unless you use LVM, there is no easy way to resize Linux partitions. Therefore, you need to consider your partition scheme carefully.

• Typically, swap space should be two to three times the amount of RAM. However, the amount of swap space you need is debatable when you have larger amounts of RAM.

Downloading the Red Hat Installation CD-ROMs

• Many candidates will want to study for the Red Hat exams using downloaded CDs.

• There are several distributions that you could use to study for the Red Hat exams. Ideally, you'll be able to get a copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for your studies.

• If you can't get a copy of RHEL, there are options, including the source RPMs, Red Hat Professional Workstation, Red Hat Linux 9, Fedora Linux, or one of the third-party 'rebuilds.'

• If you do download the Installation files, you can download the files themselves, or representations of installation CDs on special files known as ISOs.

Configuring a Network Installation

• It's quite possible that you'll end up installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux over a network during your exam.

• You can configure a Network Installation Server to work with an NFS, FTP, or HTTP connection.

• Network installations require static IP address information or a DHCP server on the network.

Customizing Your Installation

• There are baseline packages associated with every installation of RHEL, as defined by the /RedHat/base/comps.xml file on the first installation CD.

• There are default packages associated with and suitable for RHEL Server and Workstation.

• In most cases, it's likely that you'll need to customize the package groups for your installation-for the exam and in real life.

• The package groups you select is a critical choice during the Installation part of both Red Hat exams.

Required Disk Space

• Depending on your requirements, Red Hat Enterprise Linux installs between approximately 600MB and 4GB of files.

• When you plan space for any RHEL installation, remember to leave room for user data, additional applications, services, and a swap partition.

Filesystems

• To know how you want to set up partitions, you need to understand the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS).

• The FHS is a standard for organizing directories for Linux- and Unix-based systems.

• You can organize different directories within the FHS on different partitions. Such a configuration is easier to maintain and easier to secure.

• There are several filesystems that you should consider mounting on separate partitions: /tmp, /boot, /usr/local, /var, and /home.

• Depending on installed services such as Web, FTP, NFS, or Samba, it may be appropriate to configure other filesystems on separate partitions.

The Installation Process

• Boot disks are important but fragile; with the dd command, boot disks are easy to copy.

• You can usually start the RHEL 3 installation process directly from a bootable CD or an installation floppy.

• The installation process is fairly straightforward and self-explanatory.

• When you practice installing RHEL 3, don't worry if you make a mistake during the process. It is usually easiest to restart the process from the beginning.

Sample Installation Exercises

• One of the key decisions when you plan a Linux installation is partitioning. This section sets up a number of partitioning exercises for installing RHEL 3 in different scenarios.