Fedora Core 4 - The Perfect Setup

[till]

I guess you are using a GUI editor from Gnome or KDE? Please use an shell editor like vi or joe to edit the configuration files. With GUI editors you might get permisiion denied errors even when run as root.

To create an empty file, you can use the command:

touch /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

or use an editor of your choice if you want put some text in the file.

[falko]

Have a look here to learn how to edit files on the command line: http://www.howtoforge.com/faq/11_15_en.html

[betablue]

Yet, any "perfect" setup guide defeats its purpose if the instructions are incomplete.

Assumption, that the user knows the any commands is wrong.
It creates confusion and unnecesary questions, that could be avoided by providing accurate step-by-step instructions (including commands issued during the process)

When I followed this gudide I was under impression, that there was a missing page after initial reboot (Page 2)

There was no mention about Login as root (local or remote) and from theoretical assumtion how the file looks it says: "Now we want to create the virtual interface eth0:0"... " (No mention how to do it)

The guide would be great if these "holes" were filled with proper content.

BTW: sending people off to read instructions somewhere else on the internet defeats the purpose of publishing such guide at all.

[till]

Originally Posted by betablue

Yet, any "perfect" setup guide defeats its purpose if the instructions are incomplete.

Assumption, that the user knows the any commands is wrong.
It creates confusion and unnecesary questions, that could be avoided by providing accurate step-by-step instructions (including commands issued during the process)

When I followed this gudide I was under impression, that there was a missing page after initial reboot (Page 2)

There was no mention about Login as root (local or remote) and from theoretical assumtion how the file looks it says: "Now we want to create the virtual interface eth0:0"... " (No mention how to do it)

The guide would be great if these "holes" were filled with proper content.

BTW: sending people off to read instructions somewhere else on the internet defeats the purpose of publishing such guide at all.

1) The howtos where complete and many users have used them successfully. They provide step by step instructions to setup a server, not to learn linux in general. Providing instructions on how to edit a file where not in the scope of a howto for server setups.
2) The link that Falko posted is not anywhere in the Internet, its in the FAQ from Howtoforge.

[falko]

Originally Posted by betablue

Yet, any "perfect" setup guide defeats its purpose if the instructions are incomplete.

Assumption, that the user knows the any commands is wrong.
It creates confusion and unnecesary questions, that could be avoided by providing accurate step-by-step instructions (including commands issued during the process)

When I followed this gudide I was under impression, that there was a missing page after initial reboot (Page 2)

There was no mention about Login as root (local or remote) and from theoretical assumtion how the file looks it says: "Now we want to create the virtual interface eth0:0"... " (No mention how to do it)

The guide would be great if these "holes" were filled with proper content.

BTW: sending people off to read instructions somewhere else on the internet defeats the purpose of publishing such guide at all.

This is a "copy & paste" tutorial which means if you copy and paste the commands and don't make any typos it will work out of the box. It did for me many times; if it doesn't work for you, then I'm sure you did something wrong.

However, the instructions are complete. If you tell me exactly where you're having problems then I might be able to help you.

[betablue]

I was referring to the Jesters' post saying:

hey im new to linux but i wanna setup a web server on 1 of my old computers
ive been following the "The Perfect Setup - Fedora Core 4" guide and i finished installing but wen i type /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 i get permission denied. and the next step it says create this file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0 how do you create the file?

That is exactly the point I am referring to as a weekness of this guide. (I don't mean to criticize it, but make a sugestion to make it better and easier to understand for people new to linux, who wand to migrate from "redmond".

as the guide says:

Finally, the installation is complete, and you can remove your CD/DVD from the computer and reboot it:

So, you reboot the computer and then you see a login promt on the black screen. Now what? (guide doesn't say)

I guess Login as a root using password previously chosen is the only option.
OK.
- You said it's a copy and paste guide. Great! How do I copy and where do I copy from?
Two options:
1. If guide is printed - I can re-type, that's fine.
2. If I have another computer with guide in the web browser I can re-type again.
(Guide does not tell us to use PUTTY at this moment)
Let's say we connect with PUTTY to the servers' IP (comes up with a security warning - that may confuse the user)
Now we use root login and pass and we get the prompt

If at this moment we copy and paste the line from the guide:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

the system will respond with the error: "permission denied" as Jester stated and it is not the matter of using GUI editor from Gnome or KDE as Till have sugested in his response.

I think it should be more like:

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

then remember to edit IP's in the lines quoted

DEVICE=eth0:0
BOOTPROTO=static
BROADCAST=192.168.0.255
IPADDR=192.168.0.101
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.0.0
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet

before copying and pasting it to your server.
Make sure to enter the Insert mode (i) in the editor before pasting, as otherwise all characters before "i" will be lost from the pasted text.
To save the file, press :x (you must not be in Insert mode. If you are, press ESC to leave it).
Press :q to leave the file (but you must not be in Insert mode).

I didn't test this guide any further, so I'll delay my comments 'till after I'll do it.

The attitude: This wasn't written to teach you linux doesn't cut it. As you can see, neebees are trying to use those guides and get stuck in the middle.
It is only decrimental to their interrest with linux.

[falko]

Originally Posted by betablue

So, you reboot the computer and then you see a login promt on the black screen. Now what? (guide doesn't say)

I guess you don't have any other option than logging in as root...

Originally Posted by betablue

- You said it's a copy and paste guide. Great! How do I copy and where do I copy from?
Two options:
1. If guide is printed - I can re-type, that's fine.
2. If I have another computer with guide in the web browser I can re-type again.
(Guide does not tell us to use PUTTY at this moment)

At the top of http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_fedora_core_4 it reads:

This is a "copy & paste" HowTo! The easiest way to follow this tutorial is to use a command line client/SSH client (like PuTTY for Windows) and simply copy and paste the commands (except where you have to provide own information like IP addresses, hostnames, passwords,...). This helps to avoid typos.

If at this moment we copy and paste the line from the guide:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

the system will respond with the error: "permission denied" as Jester stated and it is not the matter of using GUI editor from Gnome or KDE as Till have sugested in his response.

I think it should be more like:

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

But I didn't tell anyone to run

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

I say

All we have to do is to create the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0

Now it's up to you how you create that file. vi is not the only possibility (and I think it wouldn't be good to mention vi to newbies - they'd have difficulties to use it). You could also create that file on your Windows workstation and copy it to your server with WinSCP, or you could use echo commands to create the file, etc.

I understand what you mean, but when I write a tutorial it's sometimes very hard for me to imagine what people can do wrong. I'm trying my best to prevent anyone from doing mistakes, but they are always inventing methods that I can't even dream of...

[betablue]

I agree, as I was told many times
"you can't make something completly "idiot-proof", because someone will always invent a better idiot."
but at least we can try to make it more difficult for them to do so. (meaning try to cover most obvious points, where problems may occur)

I have noticed that the logical flow of the guide was broken at that point (what to do after installation ends and computer re-boots), so I thought to point it out, as there was a question posted specifically relating to that point.

I agree, you did not specifically tell anyone to run that line, but it also didin't say what else to do with it (so to people unfamiliar with linux it may imply to run it - as did it to Jester).

Now, if someone follows this thread, it sure will clear a lot of things for them, but it would be nice if that info was already in the guide.

[betablue]

OK, I went a little further on this install following the guide and have noticed that there is more similar issues with the edit of files (maybe general edit procedure should be explained somewhere if no exact commands/instructions are given)

I used vi to create/edit needed files and it worked just fine.

When I got to the line:

install Net:NS (when prompted to enable tests, choose no)

in the "Install some Perl Modules needed by SpamAssassin" section an obsticle occured:
there was no promt to enable/disable tests and as it went on and it returned an error:

cpan> install Net:NS

Running install for module Net:NS
Running make for O/OL/OLAF/Net-DNS-0.51.tar.gz
Is already unwrapped into directory /root/.cpan/build/Net-DNS-0.51
Has already been processed within this session
Running make test
PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 /usr/bin/perl "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-e" "test_harness(0, 'blib/lib', 'blib/arch')" t/*.t
t/00-load..................ok
t/00-pod...................skipped
all skipped: Test::Pod v0.95 required for testing POD
t/00-version...............ok
t/01-resolver-env..........ok
t/01-resolver-file.........ok
7/8 skipped: Could not read configuration file
t/01-resolver-opt..........ok
t/01-resolver..............ok
2/44 skipped: Online tests disabled.
t/02-header................ok
t/03-question..............ok
t/04-packet-unique-push....ok
t/04-packet................ok
t/05-rr-sshfp..............skipped
all skipped: Digest::BubbleBabble not installed.
t/05-rr-txt................ok
t/05-rr-unknown............ok
t/05-rr....................ok
t/06-update................ok
t/07-misc..................ok
t/08-online................skipped
all skipped: Online tests disabled.
t/09-tkey..................ok
t/10-recurse...............skipped
all skipped: Online tests disabled.
t/11-escapedchars..........NOK 41# Failed test (t/11-escapedchars.t at line 203)
# got: 'bla(*.foo.org'
# expected: 'bla\(*.foo.org'
t/11-escapedchars..........NOK 95# Failed test (t/11-escapedchars.t at line 203)
# got: '\000\001\002\003\004\005\006\007\008\009\010\011\ 012\013\014\015\016\017\018\019\020\021\022\023\02 4\025\026\027\028\029\030\031\032.!\"#\$%&'()*+,-\./0.:\;<=>?\@A.[\\]^_`.{|}~\127\128\129'
# expected: '\000\001\002\003\004\005\006\007\008\009\010\011\ 012\013\014\015\016\017\018\019\020\021\022\023\02 4\025\026\027\028\029\030\031\032.!\"#\$%&'\(\)*+,-\./0.:\;<=>?\@A.[\\]^_`.{|}~\127\128\129'
t/11-escapedchars..........ok 96/141#
# disabling XS based dns_expand for a moment.
t/11-escapedchars..........ok 99/141#
# Continuing to use the XS based dn_expand()
t/11-escapedchars..........ok 141/141# Looks like you failed 2 tests of 141.
t/11-escapedchars..........dubious
Test returned status 2 (wstat 512, 0x200)
DIED. FAILED tests 41, 95
Failed 2/141 tests, 98.58% okay
t/11-inet6.................ok
5/6 skipped: Socket6 and or IO::Socket::INET6 not loaded
Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
t/11-escapedchars.t 2 512 141 2 1.42% 41 95
4 tests and 14 subtests skipped.
Failed 1/22 test scripts, 95.45% okay. 2/902 subtests failed, 99.78% okay.
make: *** [test_dynamic] Error 255
/usr/bin/make test -- NOT OK
Running make install
make test had returned bad status, won't install without force

cpan>

Any ideas what't up with it?

All others (HTML::Parser, DB_File, Digest::SHA1) report as "up to date"

[falko]

Originally Posted by betablue

in the "Install some Perl Modules needed by SpamAssassin" section an obsticle occured:
there was no promt to enable/disable tests and as it went on and it returned an error:

Maybe you've overseen it. It is there, so you should try again.