Installing the RedHat Enterprise Linux OS on the Management Server

This section provides procedures for installing and configuring the Linux OS on your management server. The Linux OS must be installed on the management server before you can install the N1 System Manager system software.

This section discusses the following topics:

• Linux OS Disk Drive Considerations

• Linux OS Installation Requirements

Linux OS Disk Drive Considerations

Linux must be installed on an empty hard drive that contains no partitions or data. If the hard drive contains partitions, delete the partitions before installing the Linux OS.

The following table provides the partitioning information for the management server, based on the minimum requirement of a 72–gigabyte hard drive.

If your hard drive is larger than 72 Gbytes:

• Do not change the assigned space for swap.

• Allocate the space shown above for /boot.

• Allocate the remaining space to / (root).

Linux OS Installation Requirements

Install the entire Linux distribution on the management server. For a list of qualified Linux operating systems, see Management Server Requirements.

When installing Linux on the management server:

• Ensure the partitions on all disks on the management server have been deleted before installing the Linux operating system.

• If you are installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4.0 Update 1 or later, when prompted whether to enable SELinux, choose Disable. N1 System Manager does not support SELinux fully enabled.

• When prompted for the boot loader, choose Grub.

• When prompted for partitioning information:

  • If you are installing using the graphical installation mode, choose , choose Automatically Partition.

  • If you are installing using the text installation mode, choose , choose Autopartition.

  You are prompted to choose whether to remove all Linux partitions, remove all partitions, or keep all partitions. Choose Remove all partitions. The partitioning values are displayed.

  • Remove all partitions except boot, swap and / (root).

  • Ensure that the swap partition is two to three times total system RAM or 4 Gbytes, whichever is greater.

  • Assign all remaining free space to / (root).

• When prompted to provide the Ethernet port selections, assign the IP addresses, netmask, and gateway values according to your chosen reference architecture.

• When prompted for the firewall configuration, choose No firewall.

• When prompted for package installation:

  • If you are installing using the graphical installation mode, choose Customize the set of packages to install.

  • If you are installing using the text installation mode, choose Customize software selection.

• When prompted for the set of packages to install, choose Everything.