In my last-but-one post, I explained how you could build a ‘Linux toolbox’: a RCSL server that acts as web server, DNS lookup server, NFS server and more. I also showed how you could do all of that with barely any manual intervention, thanks to the magic of Kickstart scripts.

Well, now I want to suggest a couple of additions to really round out your toolbox’s functionality. These can’t really be automated, because they involve agreeing to licences and export restrictions and so forth.

1. Add some useful binaries

Your toolbox server is lacking a GUI, so monitoring its CPU, disk I/O and memory usage might be tricky. Fortunately, nmon is a command-line utility that monitors all these things easily. So adding that to your toolbox server might be a good idea. It can be obtained as an rpm suitable for all of the RCSL 6.x, 64-bit distros from this site.

You may also feel you need a graphical way of re-configuring things like hostnames, IP addresses, DNS settings and so on. A useful tool for that is webmin, which is a browser-based way of doing precisely that. There’s an rpm suitable for all RCSL distros available on this page.

Once you install it, just fire up a browser in a client PC and point it at your toolbox server’s IP address, specifying port 10000. In my case, that means typing into a browser’s URL bar something like http://192.168.8.250:10000

After that, it’s just a matter of logging on (as root) and then clicking around seeing what is available.

I’m going to suggest two additional binaries you might want to download and store in the toolbox’s /var/www/html directory -not because they are useful to the toolbox itself, but because they might prove useful later on. First, the public domain korn shell is largely redundant these days, but happens to be a prerequisite for Oracle installs on RCSL distros, If you don’t install it, you can therefore get annoying warning messages from the Oracle installer. Fortunately, a version of it is available for download as an RCSL 64-bit compatible RPM from here.

The final binary I suggest you download is rlwrap. You can download it as a tarball, extract it and then compile it if you like, but there’s an RPM version available for download which is a bit simpler to get working, so I’m going to suggest you get that and store it in your toolbox server’s web document root directory instead.

Of course, if you’ve been following this series of posts, you’ll know that my toolbox server, by design, doesn’t have a network connection to the Internet, so downloading those things using the toolbox itself is not possible. That’s why I download them all on a different machine that does have an Internet connection and then burn them onto an ISO (a virtual DVD). (I use Brasero to do that, but any DVD burning software will do the job). Once the four binaries (nmon, webmin, pdksh and rlwrap) are stored on the virtual DVD, it’s trivial to get the toolbox server to mount the ISO and copy them all off to the /var/www/html directory. Once there, you can install nmon and webmin on the toolbox itself:

rpm -Uvh nmon-14f-1.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh webmin-1.620-1.noarch.rpm

The other two will come in handy later on. If you can’t burn your own ISOs, here’s one I prepared earlier…

2. Add some Oracle files

The other software which it would be useful to copy to the toolbox, so it can be served up to clients later on, is the Oracle database software itself. I can’t give you a handy link to those: you’ll have to get them from either Oracle’s own otn or edelivery sites.

If you have paid-for support, you could obtain the 11.2.0.3 version of the Oracle database: you’ll have files called things like “p10404530_112030_Linux-x86-64_1of7.zip” and “p10404530_112030_Linux-x86-64_2of7.zip”.

If you download the freebie versions from OTN, you’ll have to make do with the 11.2.0.1 version, and you’ll end up with file names like “linux.x64_11gR2_database_1of2.zip” and “linux.x64_11gR2_database_2of2.zip”.

If you do your downloads from edelivery without a paid-for support contract, you’ll again be limited to the 11.2.0.1 version of the database, but this time you’ll end up with file names such as “V17530-01_1of2.zip” and “V17530-0_2of2.zip”.

Since all the versions and file name variations can get confusing, I’m going to suggest that whatever files you download, you rename them to be in the form: oradb-1120x-1of2.zip, where “x” is the relevant bit of the version number. So, having paid-for support, I’m going to end up with oradb-11203-1of2.zip; if I were only able to access OTN freebies, I’d end up with oradb-11201-1of2.zip, and so on.

Once you’ve download and re-named your Oracle files, again burn them onto a virtual DVD iso file, get your toolbox server to mount it, and copy all the zips it contains to the /var/www/html directory. Once there, the zip files will be able to be used by other servers you build that need them.

3. Conclusion

Having done all of the above, when I list the contents of my toolbox server’s /var/www/html directory, here’s what I see:

The “sl” directory (in blue) is there because, you’ll remember, my Kickstart script causes the toolbox to copy its own installation media to disk -and this happens to be a Scientific Linux box.

The four files in red are the little utilities that the toolbox itself, and any server it’s later used to help build, might find useful. Obviously, there are no Oracle database files there yet, but a bit of downloading and renaming as described earlier results in this:

Now you see the 2 Oracle database zip files sitting there (these are the freebie versions, so they’re 11.2.0.1).

The significance of all this? Well, you’ve now got yourself a toolbox that is almost ready to do completely hands-free Oracle installations on other RCSL servers. I’ll explain the extra ingredient needed next time…

In the previous sequence of posts, I’ve documented how you can build a RCSL server that can act as a DHCP, DNS, NFS, Web and Time server.

But why do each one in isolation? Why not build a single server that is configured to be all of those things, so that when all is done, it acts as giant ‘toolbox’ of network services to your entire network? Actually, there is a good reason not to do that, called “single point of failure”. But in a home network/test lab environment, I don’t think that’s an important consideration. So the all-in-one toolbox approach sounds good to me!

You’ll notice from all those previous posts, though, that setting up each of these network services often takes a lot of typing -and thus has a high risk of getting something wrong.

So can we automatically build a single server that can provide all these services, configured correctly ‘out of the box’? Sure we can: and it’s our old friend Kickstart that will work this particular brand of magic. And here is a Kickstart script that will do everything discussed in the previous 6 posts, all in one, completely automatically:

#  =======================================================================
#  This Kickstart script written by Howard Rogers. 
#  Copyright (c) 2013 Howard Rogers,Dizwell Informatics
#  The script is supplied "as-is" with no warranties or guarantees of 
#  fitness of use or otherwise. Neither Dizwell Informatics nor 
#  Howard Rogers accepts any responsibility whatsoever for any 
#  damage caused by the use or misuse of this script.
#  =======================================================================

install
text
cdrom
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
network --onboot yes --device eth0 --bootproto static --ip 192.168.8.250 --netmask 255.255.255.0 --noipv6 --nameserver 192.168.8.250 --hostname marconi.dizwell.home
firewall --disabled
authconfig --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512
selinux --disabled
timezone Etc/GMT
bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=sda --append="crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet"
clearpart --all
part / --fstype=ext4 --size 20000 --grow
part swap --size 1024

%packages
@base
@core
@nfs-file-server
@network-server
@system-admin-tools
@web-server
@server-platform
bind
dhcp
nfs-utils
ntp
crypto-utils
-vconfig
-setuptool
-kexec-tools
-sos
-wireless-tools
-system-config-network-tui
-mdadm
-dmraid
-hunspell-en
-tcsh
-abrt-cli
-scl-utils
-systemtap-runtime
-fprintd-pam
-dosfstools
-smartmontools
-rfkill
-blktrace
-pinfo
-system-config-firewall-tui
-words
-abrt-addon-kerneloops
-abrt-addon-ccpp
-bridge-utils
-mtr
-pcmciautils
-usbutils
-ledmon
-hunspell
-abrt-addon-python
-man-pages
-b43-fwcutter
%post
chkconfig iptables off

# Configure NFS Server
mkdir /griddata
mkdir /dbdata
echo "/dbdata 192.168.8.0/24(rw,sync,no_wdelay,insecure_locks,no_root_squash)" > /etc/exports
echo "/griddata 192.168.8.0/24(rw,sync,no_wdelay,insecure_locks,no_root_squash)" >> /etc/exports
chkconfig nfs on
service nfs start

#Configure DHCP Server
echo "option domain-name            \"dizwell.home\";" > /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "option domain-name-servers    192.168.8.250;" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "default-lease-time   600;" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "max-lease-time 6000;" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "authoritative;" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "subnet 192.168.8.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "range dynamic-bootp 192.168.8.200 192.168.8.240;" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "option broadcast-address 192.168.8.255;" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
echo "}" >> /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
chkconfig dhcpd on
service dhcpd start

#Configure DNS Server
echo "options {" > /etc/named.conf
echo "    directory \"/var/named\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    dump-file \"/var/named/data/cache_dump.db\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    statistics-file \"/var/named/data/named_stats.txt\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    memstatistics-file \"/var/named/data/named_mem_stats.txt\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    allow-query { localhost; 192.168.8.0/24; };" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    recursion yes;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    dnssec-enable no;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    dnssec-validation no;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    dnssec-lookaside auto;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    /* Path to ISC DLV key */" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    bindkeys-file \"/etc/named.iscdlv.key\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    managed-keys-directory \"/var/named/dynamic\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    };" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    logging {" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "        channel default_debug {" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "       file \"data/named.run\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "       severity dynamic;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "         };" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    };" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    zone \".\" IN {" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "         type hint;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "         file \"named.ca\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    };" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    zone \"dizwell.home\" IN {" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "        type master;" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "        file \"dizwell.hosts\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    };" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    include \"/etc/named.rfc1912.zones\";" >> /etc/named.conf
echo "    include \"/etc/named.root.key\";" >> /etc/named.conf

echo "\$TTL 86400" > /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "@ IN SOA marconi.dizwell.home. hjr.dizwell.com. (" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "2013030501 ;Serial" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "3600 ;Refresh" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "1800 ;Retry" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "604800 ;Expire" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "86400 ;Minimum TTL" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo ")" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "        IN NS   marconi.dizwell.home." >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "        IN A    192.168.8.250" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "marconi         IN A    192.168.8.250" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "alpher          IN A    192.168.8.101" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "bethe           IN A    192.168.8.102" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "alpher-priv    IN A    10.0.0.1" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "bethe-priv    IN A    10.0.0.2" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "alpher-vip      IN A    192.168.8.111" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "bethe-vip       IN A    192.168.8.112" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "racscan         IN A    192.168.8.200" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "racscan         IN A    192.168.8.201" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo "racscan         IN A    192.168.8.202" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo ";; end of zone" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts
echo ";;" >> /var/named/dizwell.hosts

echo "search dizwell.home" > /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 192.168.8.250" >> /etc/resolv.conf
chown named:named /var/named/dizwell.hosts
#service named start
chkconfig named on

#Configure NTP Server
echo "server 127.127.1.0" > /etc/ntp.conf
echo "fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 2" >> /etc/ntp.conf
echo "driftfile /var/ntp/ntp.drift" >> /etc/ntp.conf
echo "statsdir /var/ntp/ntpstats/" >> /etc/ntp.conf 
echo "filegen peerstats file peerstats type day enable" >> /etc/ntp.conf
echo "filegen loopstats file loopstats type day enable" >> /etc/ntp.conf
service ntpd start
chkconfig ntpd on

#Configure Web Server

if [ `lsb_release -d | grep 6.4 | wc -l` -eq 1 ]; then
  VERSION=64
elif [ `lsb_release -d | grep 6.3 | wc -l` -eq 1 ]; then
  VERSION=63
else
  VERSION=6
fi

DISTRO=$(lsb_release -is)
if [ $DISTRO = "CentOS" ]; then
  mkdir -p /var/www/html/centos/$VERSION
  DISTRO=centos
elif [ $DISTRO = "OracleServer" ]; then
  mkdir -p /var/www/html/oel/$VERSION
  DISTRO=oel
elif [ $DISTRO = "Scientific" ]; then
  mkdir -p /var/www/html/sl/$VERSION
  DISTRO=sl
else
  mkdir -p /var/www/html/unknown/$VERSION  
  DISTRO=unknown
fi

mount /dev/sr0 /media
cp -rvf /media/* /var/www/html/$DISTRO/$VERSION
umount /media
service httpd start
chkconfig httpd on

%end

This script works with any of the mainstream 64-bit RCSL distros: it’s been tested on 64-bit CentOS 6.3 and 6.4, Scientific Linux 6.3 and 6.4 and Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.3 and 6.4,

To use it, obviously you first need appropriate O/S installation media. Use the full DVD media that allows fully-functional installs from a single DVD, because the script can’t cope with changing DVDs half-way through an installation. Here are where I sourced my test ISOs from:

(Red Hat installation media are only available to paying customers, so I figure you’ll already know where to go on the Red Hat portal to get the appropriate ISO!)

The Kickstart script itself then needs to be copied to somewhere that your “toolbox server” can find it during O/S installation: a floppy disk is good, but they are getting a bit thin on the ground, physically, these days! A USB stick might do the job, too. But, for my money, the simplest approach is to burn it onto a CD (or ISO CD image). If 700MB or 4.7GB for a single text file seems a bit extravagant, so be it: at least it works.

Here is an ISO file containing the above script. Burn it to a physical CD/DVD if you like, or use it as an ISO file to help boot a virtual machine. Of course, the Kickstart file it contains is hard-wired to build a server called Marconi with an IP address of 192.168.8.250, as per my previous posts. If you want a different configuration, you’ll have to build your own ISO having edited the script, first.

This Kickstart-on-DVD arrangement would mean, of course, that your physical server would need two DVD drives installed: the first to hold the O/S DVD media and the second to hold the Kickstart file. That might be a tall order on a physical server (though USB external DVD drives could potentially come to the rescue), but it’s easy on a virtual machine: just add the extra hardware at the time you create the new virtual machine:

That’s in VirtualBox: note that the full Linux installation disk is listed before the toolbox.iso: that’s important, because the boot disk has to be the first in order of boot priority. If the toolbox disk is listed first, you’ll be trying to boot from a text file… and that won’t work! Just alter the “IDE Primary/Secondary Master” and “IDE Primary/Secondary Slave” drop box against each disk until your boot disk is primary master and your toolbox ISO is listed as primary slave or secondary master/slave.

After that, you just have to intervene briefly at boot time:

As for any Kickstart installation, you simply press TAB when the boot welcome menu appears. That displays some existing text (vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img) and all you have to do is, as you see here, append a bit of information to say where your Kickstart file is. Mostly, that just means correctly identifying the device it’s stored on.

If your Kickstart file was stored on a floppy disk, the device identifier would be hd:fd0 (that’s a zero, not an oh). Since mine is on a secondary CD drive, my device identifier is as you see it here: hd:sr1. In either case, the Kickstart file itself is called “toolbox.ks”, so you just stick that on the end of the appropriate device identifier. In my case, I end up with:

hd:sr1/toolbox.ks

The hardest part is working out your device names -and that might take a bit of trial and error. But once you get it right, your involvement in the rest of the installation will be absolutely minimal:

• You may be prompted to agree to having your hard disk wiped, but only if it’s a completely new hard disk that has never been partitioned before. If you’re re-using a pre-loved hard disk, it will be wiped without any prompting.
• You will be prompted once for a root password (typed in twice).

Other than that, the entire installation will complete automatically, and all the network services discussed over the past 6 posts (DHCP, DNS, NFS, NTP and Apache) will be auto-configured without any manual intervention on your part. At the end of the installation, therefore, you’ll be owner of a self-contained, highly functional Linux ‘toolbox’.

Remember, if you’re doing this in a Virtual Machine, that I’m expecting your toolbox to have just 512MB RAM, at least a 25GB hard disk and to be using Host-only networking.

To show you how painless it all is, here’s a video of me doing practically nothing! (I’ve cut out nothing, but I suggest you play it back at 2x or 3x speed, so that it’s not quite as boring as it was originally!).

Key features of the movie:

• At ~0:38, I am asked to re-initialise the disk, because this one had never been used before. I select the Re-initialize all option.
• At ~0:44, I supply a root password (twice)
• At ~3:33, the installation process ends and the post-installation scripts are run. This involves copying the installation media itself from DVD to hard disk. Since about 4GB of data is involved, it takes a while to complete.
• At ~5:00, I am asked to reboot. Once the machine does so, I log on as root and demonstate that all the network services are up and running -after precisely three bits of user input.

Assuming you can view the toolbox.ks file in a text editor that can display line numbers, here are a few observations about the file, referenced to the various lines.

Line 11: The RCSL install that uses this Kickstart file will do a text-mode install. This is good, because a server providing all the network services I’ve mentioned only needs around 512MB of RAM -but that’s not enough memory to do a graphical installation.

Line 15: The Server will end up part of the dizwell.home domain (you can obviously edit this to suit), and have an IP address of 192.168.8.250.

Line 16: The Firewall is disabled. It’s a blunt approach: we should more properly open up ports 80, 53 and so on. But this is simpler: and it works!

Line 18: SELinux is disabled. SELinux afficionados will disapprove, but again, simply disabling it means everything works without fuss.

Lines 21 – 23: The server will expect a hard disk of at least ~25GB. Most of that will be assigned to a single root partition at least 20GB in size (but it can grow bigger than that if the disk space is there); a 1GB swap partition is also created. Note that this will wipe any hard disk it’s pointed at… making it lethal. If you don’t want a hard disk wiped, don’t use this script!

Lines 25 – 70: The bare minimum of software is installed. You’ll note that NFS, Apache, Bind (DNS), DHCP and NTP are all added to the mix, though.

Lines 73 – 79: Pretty much a re-hash of my recent ‘quickly build an NFS server’ post

Lines 81 – 92: Pretty much a re-hash of my recent ‘quickly build a DHCP server’ post

Lines 94 – 155: Pretty much a re-hash of my recent ‘quickly build a DNS server’ post

Lines 157 – 165: Pretty much a re-hash of my recent ‘quickly build an NTP server’ post

Lines 195 – 196: Getting the Apache webserver running and ensuring it runs at every server reboot thereafter, as explained in the ‘quickly build a webserver’ post.

Lines 192 – 194 Potentially the most important lines of the lot, because they ensure that the server copies its own installation DVD to hard disk -thus making it able to host future over-the-network installs of other RCSL servers. As future posts here will explain, that capability is going to become significant.