package as a snap container. What command should you use to install PowerShell on your Ubuntu server?
Install software from source code. The chapter closed with a discussion on how to install software packages that are only distributed in source code tarballs. The tar command allows you to unpack the source code files from the tarball, and then the configure and make commands allow you to build the final executable program from the source code.Master It There are lots of handy utilities created and shared by Linux developers. One such utility is the sysstat tool. The sysstat tool provides statistics for various features of your Linux system. You can find the sysstat tool on the developer's website, sebastien.godard.pagesperso‐orange.fr. After downloading the package tarball, what commands would you need to use to compile the software and install it on your Linux server?
Chapter 4 Installing a Red Hat Server
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the most popular Linux distribution, and chances are that you'll install it many times during your Linux career. Gaining experience with this distro's installation process will help you become a Linux expert. If you read through Chapter 2, “Installing an Ubuntu Server,” some items within the installation steps will feel familiar. However, there are enough differences between installing the two Linux distributions that you can get tripped up.
Therefore, our goal in this chapter is to assist you through your first installation of a RHEL distribution. We'll provide step‐by‐step guidance, help you avoid pitfalls, and ultimately build your sysadmin skillset.
IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL LEARN TO
Review needed Red Hat Server hardware resources
Determine the requirements for a virtual Red Hat system
Obtain Red Hat Server software
Conduct an installation of a Red Hat Server
Audit the Red Hat Server's installation
Pre‐Installation Requirements
Before taking a look at the needed resources, we need to have a chat about fees associated with RHEL. This particular distribution requires you to pay money to use it. For example, every year it would cost you about $350 to potentially more than $1,300 per system to run RHEL on a server. This is expensive if you just want a Linux distribution to work with for learning purposes! But don't give up hope, because we've got a free solution for you. The CentOS Linux distribution is free of charge and is a community‐supported version of RHEL. For learning purposes, it will work perfectly for you!
UNDERSTANDING RED HAT CHARGES FOR RHEL
While it may seem odd to you that a company charges for its Linux distribution, Red Hat has solid reasoning and experience behind what it calls its subscription model. When you pay a subscription, besides getting the RHEL distro to run on a server and access to any of its software updates, you have access to experts.
As an example, suppose you have a mission‐critical system running RHEL. The system starts to exhibit some performance issues. Your subscription with Red Hat includes a system performance expert, who will analyze and evaluate your server configuration and then make recommendations for improvement. In addition, you can talk to RHEL security experts and get technical support at any time.
Red Hat has been using this subscription model for more than 20 years, and the popularity of this Linux distribution shows that the model works. You can find more information about the Red Hat subscription model at redhat.com.
For our purposes in this book, the CentOS distribution without a GUI will provide what is needed since our target is a headless server (see Chapter 2 for a more detailed explanation as to why a GUI is typically not used in modern server rooms). Specifically, we're using a CentOS 8 Linux distribution.
Before starting your CentOS installation, it's a good idea to review what resources are needed. This step is important in order to achieve a successful Linux distribution installation.
UNDERSTANDING BASIC VIRTUALIZATION TERMS
If you're unfamiliar with virtualization computer terms, it's a good idea to read through the first several pages of Chapter 22, “Exploring the Virtualization Environment.” If you'd like a quick jump start instead, a few basic definitions were covered in Chapter 2.
You may perform the CentOS installation on a physical system, or you may install it as a virtual machine on a host system. Thus, in the next few sections, we'll look at the hardware requirements needed for installing the CentOS distribution directly on a physical server and for installing it within a virtualized environment.
Hardware Requirements
If you plan on installing the CentOS 8 distribution directly on a headless server, your computer must support a 64‐bit processor architecture. Here is a list of a few that will work well:
AMD amd64
ARM64 (not supported by RHEL)
Intel amd64
POWER9 (not supported by RHEL)
Besides having the proper processor on your system, you need to have enough resources available to avoid a sluggish system. Table 4.1 shows the recommended resources to support a well‐running CentOS distro.
TABLE 4.1: Recommended Server Resources for CentOS Distribution
| RESOURCE | MINIMUM | RECOMMENDED |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1.8 GHz | 2 or more GHz |
| Memory | 2 GB | 2 GB per logical CPU |
| Disk space | 10 GB | 20 or more GB |
Notice the “per logical CPU” tag in the recommended memory. This is because CentOS can support some rather powerful CPUs, and it treats every core (or thread) in a multicore (or thread) processor as a logical CPU. So if you have a dual‐core processor, it is recommended that you have 4 GB of RAM on your system, while a quad‐core processor needs 8 GB of memory.
Also, keep in mind that these recommendations are only for the operating system. Increase these resources to meet the needs of the application(s) you will run on the server.
If you don't have access to a physical
