Initial Debian Installation

This is just to get the system running. The kernel will be recompiled later.

1. Start with Debian Woody installation CDs. Boot from CD 1.
2. At the boot: menu on the welcome page, type bf24 to use kernel 2.4.
3. Partition the drives. Do without a swap partition (we're going to make one later using LVM).
4. Partitions on /dev/hda, intialised as ext3. (We'll deal with /dev/hdb later.)
   1. /dev/hda2 (the big partition) as the root partition
   2. /dev/hda1 (the small partition) as /boot
5. Additional kernel modules
   • Your network card driver
6. Network (we need this in order to do the rest of the install). Enter the values provided by your ISP.
7. Base system: accept defaults
8. Make system bootable
   1. /dev/hda: Install LILO in the MBR
9. Reboot the system (remove the CD before selecting <Yes>)
10. If it asks you about keymaps, choose Select Keymap from Arch List, then select your keyboard (in the UK, choose QWERTY then British then Standard).
11. Time zone configuration
    1. Hardware clock is set to GMT
    2. Geographical area (set as appropriate for your region)
12. Password setup
    1. Enable md5 passwords
    2. Enable shadow passwords
13. Create root user
14. Create normal user for yourself.
15. Remove PCMCIA packages
16. Don't use PPP connection to install the system
17. Apt configuration
    • Use the CDROM default, and scan each of the Debian CDs, one by one.
    • Accept the default to use http://security.debian.org/. (If the install gets interrupted at this point, when you reboot, base configuration will start again and you will be asked same question about the apt source. If you choose cdrom, you will have to scan all cd's once more. To aviod this, choose edit files by hand instead, uncomment existing deb cd-rom entries, save and exit editor.)
18. Don't run tasksel.
19. Don't run dselect.
20. Accept defaults except for:
    • Configuring locales: pick an appropriate locale for your location, and use it as the default locale. (For the UK, use en_GB ISO-8859-1.)
    • When exim asks for configuration, select Local delivery only. (We're going to replace exim in a moment.) Have mail for root delivered to your normal user account.
21. Erase any previously downloaded .deb files? Yes.
22. Log in at the login: prompt.
23. Type su and enter the root password.
24. apt-get install procmail traceroute ssh screen zsh bzip2 netcat jed vim sudo libncurses5-dev less gcc g++ make wget
    • Accept the defaults for ssh.
25. Add yourself to /etc/sudoers:
    • visudo (or, if you hate vi, EDITOR=jed visudo)
    • Add a line like this to give yourself full sudo privileges (e.g. if your username is fred):
      • fred   ALL=(ALL) ALL
26. Turn off automatic fsck for all partitions:
    • sudo tune2fs -i 0 -c 0 /dev/hda1
    • sudo tune2fs -i 0 -c 0 /dev/hda2
27. Security: disabling all inetd services
    • For security reasons, we recommend disabling all inetd services, by commenting out everything in /etc/inetd.conf file. After modifying it, tell inetd to reload it sudo killall -HUP inetd
28. For some reason, localeconf doesn't fully install.
    • sudo apt-get install localeconf to make sure it's installed. Answer yes to replace existing locale conguration files question.
    • If it was already installed and configured, sudo dpkg-reconfigure localeconf to make sure it's configured correctly.
    • Select an appropriate locale (for the UK, en_GB ISO-8859-1). Set it as the system default locale.
29. Uninstall things we'll never use (especially insecure services)
    • sudo apt-get --purge remove at ppp pppconfig pppoe pppoeconf