Debian Squeeze Base Install

Intro

New system builds for Debian Squeeze 
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 Squeeze branch. During the initial phase, the machine is not be on the network. 

PreInstall

  1. Boot machine with Debian installer CD, select "Install" from the menu and hit enter. 
  2. Select English as the default language. 
  3. Select United States as the country. 
  4. Select American English as the keyboard layout/keymap to use. 
  5. System will detect hardware, install extra drivers if necessary. 
  6. If you have multiple network cards installed then choose the one you wish to use. After this make sure to hit enter, canceling the progress of finding a DHCP IP to be able to configure manually. 
  7. Enter IP address. 
  8. Enter netmask. 
  9. Enter gateway. 
  9. Enter nameserver(s). 
  10. Enter hostname of machine, this will be the www or the mail or whatever portion of the domain. It is best to name it accordingly and it will help out in identifying which computer you are on as it shows up on the commandline prompt. 
  11. Enter domain name of the server. 
  12. Select which country you want the OS packages to be downloaded from, whichever is applicable to the server's location. 
  13. Select a mirror, it really doesn't matter which. 
  14. Unless the server is behind a proxy server, hit tab and enter with continue highlighted. 
  15. Enter the root password of your server, remember it is important to not forget it yet at the same time make it a strong password. 
  16. Enter a full name of a new user, username of the user and a password for the new user. This can not be skipped but can be deleted after install. 
  17. Select time zone. The installer will set up the clock. 
  18. Modules for drives will be auto-detected and partitioner will start. 
  19. By default all partition tables will be created as follows, unless requested by customer otherwise: 1 swap partition that is 1.5x RAM 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. If you want to allow Debian to do this for you choose Guided - use entire disk. 
  20. Now select the hard drive you wish to install to and hit enter. 
  21. Again, if you want the above file structure choose All files in one partition. 
  22. Now choose to Finish partitioning and write changes to disk and on the next screen confirm the write to disk. 
  23. Wait. 
  24. System will format partitions and install from the previously selected mirrors. 
  25. Choose not to participate in the package survey... unless you really want to. 
  26. At the software selection, uncheck all except the standard system utilities and SSH server. Any other packages can be installed later via the commandline. Hit tab to highlight continue and hit enter. 
  27. The installer will continue installing files. 
  28. Wait more. 
  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. 

Postinstall & Secruity Hardening

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 username'. 
  3. Before rebooting, remove the following symlinks: (These are just symlinks that link to the real init program in /etc/init.d) 
In the /etc/rcS.d directory: 
  rm S14portmap S16mountnfs
In the /etc/rc2.d directory: 
  rm S14portmap S15nfs-common S18exim4
        
In the /etc/rc3.d directories: 
  rm S14portmap S15nfs-common S18exim4
In the /etc/rc4.d directory: 
  rm S14portmap S15nfs-common S18exim4
        
In the /etc/rc5.d directory: 
  rm S14portmap S15nfs-common S18exim4
  4. Reboot machine and enjoy your freshly installed Debian Squeeze.