Debian Etch Baseline Installation



New system builds for Debian:

First all systems will be built with the most current Debian installer. This isn't the
revision of Debian that is installed, just the installer's revision. All installs are to use the
Etch branch. During the initial phase, the machine is not be on the network.

    1. Boot machine with Debian installer cd.
    2. Select English as the Default Language
    3. Select US as the Country
    4. Select American English as the Keyboard Layout
    5. System will detect hardware, install extra drivers if necessary

Configure network connection manually

    6. Enter IP address
    7. Enter Netmask
    8. Enter Gateway
    9. Enter Nameservers
    10. Enter Hostname of machine
    11. Enter Domain Name
    12. Modules for drives will be auto-detected and partitioner will start.
    13. By default all partition tables will be created as follows, unless requested by customer otherwise: 
    	1 swap partition that is 1.5xRAM up to a maximum of 2gig, 1 root (/) partition that is formatted ext3 
	and the remainder of drive. Both partitions should be created as primary partitions.
    14. Wait.
    15. Select Time Zone. The installer will set up the clock.
    16. Input a root password
    17. The installer will ask for a user account. Add anything here. We will 	remove this user later.
    18. You are prompted for a password for the user account, anything is fine here
    	also, remember this user will be removed.
    19. System will format partitions, and install base system off cd.
    20. Choose yes when asked if you would like to select an installation mirror.
    21. Select United States as your country.
    22. Select a mirror for installation, the one we normally use is 	ftp.egr.msu.edu.
    23. Leave the proxy field blank when asked about using an HTTP proxy.
    24. The installer will configure apt.
    25. Choose not to participate in the package survey.
    26. At the software selection, uncheck all except the standard system.
    27. The installer will begin to install some files now, this may take some 	time.
    28. Install the GRUB boot loader as the master boot record.


After boot loader is installed, system will prompt to reboot, at this time the CD is to be removed 
(sometimes the cd will be ejected by the installer), and system rebooted. 

All the initial setup is complete. Now the security of the server needs to be tightened before we 
have the machine up for the customer, and the remainder of the base packages need to be installed and upgraded.

   1. Login as root
   2. Remove the user that you were prompted to add during installation with this command. “deluser” You will be 
      prompted for the username. 
   3. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list so that it doesn't request cd for apt-get. (comment out the lines that begin with deb cdrom) 
      then run dselect, choose update and then select. From the select screen, do not select any additional packages, just 
      press enter, then choose install. This will complete the installation of all the normal development utilities and tools 
      in a base system. It will also upgrade any programs that have already been installed from the installation CD.
   4. If a kernel-image is being installed, you will have to acknowledge the info message by pressing enter after it installs, 
      this is a reminder to reboot after installation.
   5. After update/install is complete, press enter to erase the temp deb files that were used for installation, 
      and enter again to return to dselect.
   6. Choose exit
   7. Before rebooting, remove the following symlinks:
       In the /etc/rcS.d directory:
                S43portmap
		    S45mountnfs
       In the /etc/rc2.d directory:
		    S18portmap
		    S20exim4
		    S21nfs-common 
	 In the /etc/rc3.d directories:
                S18portmap
                S20exim4
                S21nfs-common
	 In the /etc/rc4.d directory:
		         S18portmap
                S20exim4
                S21nfs-common
	  In the /etc/rc5.d directory:
		        S18portmap
                S20exim4
                S21nfs-common

       These are just symlinks that link to the real init program in /etc/init.d
    8. Reboot machine
    9. Login as root
   10. Install ssh (apt-get install ssh)

Also is a link to a selections file that contains all programs that are installed in a base install.