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Project sharing - installing CentOS 8.1



Preface:

The CentOS team had a rough time catching up with the changes Red Hat made before releasing RHEL 8 last May. The single master local repository model has been replaced by a multi-segment repository ultimately homed on GitHub. That, combined with major changes to RPM v4.14 that introduced a range of new dependency types forced the team to radically change its package rebuild process. It wasn't enough to replace Red Hat copyrighted components and artwork. By the time the CentOS team hammered out their new process and released 8.0 last September, Red Hat had already released RHEL 8.1. CentOS 8.1 was finally released a couple of weeks ago, coincidentally right at a point where I needed to scrap a failed install and start over.

Installing the basic operating system:

Download the CentOS 8.1 x86_64 image from here:


At 7,554,990,080 bytes, this is a very large ISO. It will take quite a while to download, and you will need at least an 8GB thumb drive to write it to. A USB3 port and thumb drive will speed up the write process quite a bit:

# dd if=CentOS-8.1.1911-x86_64-dvd1.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=40960 status=progress

When you boot to the thumb drive ISO image, be sure to choose the default second GRUB2 line that tests the integrity of the ISO before using it. I had to do three download/write cycles to get an image that passed this integrity test.

The Storinator's boot drive is an ordinary 250GB SSD which requires no special installation. At the Software Selection screen I made the following choices:

(*) Server with GUI

In the right column I chose the following package groups:

(*) Windows File Server
(*) File and Storage Server
(*) Graphical Administration Tools
(*) Security Tools
(*) System Tools

Please note that my final installation includes many more package groups, so these five are just the beginning. A more complete list can be found below.

When setting up the Internet connection, I would recommend assigning a fixed static IP address. I chose the following:

IP Addr Subnet Gateway
192.168.1.20 24 192.168.1.254

Hostname: store.protogeek.org

To access this machine, I later added the following line to the /etc/hosts file on all machines in the local network:

192.168.1.20 store.protogeek.org store

After starting the installation, I created a local user ("doc") as a member of the Administrators group.

When initial installation is complete and the system reboots, it will be to the GNOME 3 desktop. I personally prefer the MATE desktop, and that was one of the first follow-on modifications I made to the storage server's OS.

The following RPM groups are installed on my system:

# dnf grouplist --hidden
Last metadata expiration check: 0:13:59 ago on Sun 29 Mar 2020 12:51:22 PM CDT
Available Environment Groups:
   Server
   Minimal Install
   Workstation
   KDE Plasma Workspaces
   Virtualization Host
   Custom Operating System
Installed Environment Groups:
   Server with GUI
Installed Groups:
   base-x
   Container Management
   Guest Agents
   Guest Desktop Agents
   Internet Browser
   Office Suite and Productivity
   Printing Client
   Remote Desktop Clients
   Virtualization Client
   Virtualization Hypervisor
   Virtualization Platform
   Virtualization Tools
   Base
   File and Storage Server
   Graphical Administration Tools
   Hardware Monitoring Utilities
   Headless Management
   Legacy UNIX Compatibility
   Network File System Client
   Network Servers
   Networking Tools
   Common NetworkManager submodules
   Performance Tools
   Remote Management for Linux
   Security Tools
   Server product core
   Windows File Server
   Standard
   GNOME Desktop Environment
   Graphical Internet
   Multimedia
   Core
   Fonts
   Hardware Support
   System Tools
Available Groups:
   Backup Client
   Conflicts AppStream
   Debugging Tools
   Desktop Debugging and Performance Tools
   .NET Core Development
FTP Server
   GNOME Applications
   Graphics Creation Tools
   Input Methods
   Internet Applications
   Java Platform
   Legacy X Window System Compatibility
   Atomic Host ostree support
   KVM platform specific packages
   Hyper-v platform specific packages
   VMware platform specific packages
   RPM Development Tools
   TeX formatting system
   Basic Web Server
   Additional Development
   Anaconda tools
   Conflicts BaseOS
   Development Tools
   Dial-up Networking Support
   Infiniband Support
   Large Systems Performance
   Mail Server
   Mainframe Access
   Platform Development
   Python Web
   Scientific Support
   Smart Card Support
   Workstation product core
   CentOS PowerTools
   Critical Path (KDE)
   Fedora Packager
   KDE Applications
   KDE Educational applications
   KDE Multimedia support
   KDE Office
   KDE Software Development
   KDE Frameworks 5 Software Development
   Xfce
   KDE (K Desktop Environment)
   Games and Entertainment
   Sound and Video

Second stage install:

Access to additional non-CentOS repositories is required. The first is EPEL, the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux repository:

The next is the Enterprise Linux Repository, or ELREPO:


And of course any CentOS or Fedora installation needs access to the RPM Fusion repositories, both free and non-free:

# dnf install --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-8.noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-8.noarch.rpm
# dnf config-manager --enable PowerTools

The next added repository allows you to install the MATE desktop as an alternative to the stock GNOME 3 desktop. This is completely optional. Follow the instructions here:


The last repository will allow you to install the ZFS file system for use by the hard drives in the payload bay. Note that this requires access to the EPEL repository (above):

# yum install "kernel-devel-uname-r == $(uname -r)" zfs

Now that the preliminaries are all installed, it's time to set up the ZFS filesystem for the payload drives. If the ZFS filesystem package installation was correct, you'll see the following:

# zfs --version
zfs-0.8.3-1
zfs-kmod-0.8.3-1

The next installment will detail the ZFS configuration.

--Doc Savage
Fairview Heights, IL