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install_guide.md

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  • Add server to inventory list.
  • Install RAM.
    • Note if the motherboard requires error-correcting (EEC) RAM or a specific kind of DDR.
    • Use approximately 2Gb per CPU.
  • Install drives.
    • Prefer drives that have been tested with SMART, if they are available.
    • State that these drives are used in this machine in the inventory list.
  • Install into server rack.
  • Plug in a mouse, keyboard, and screen.
  • Turn off RAID card in BIOS. Hardware RAID requires a priorietary chip that can be difficult to procure if the chip fails. We prefer software RAID.
    • If RAID is unable to be turned off, we created as many virtual disks as physical disks.
      • During the boot sequence immediately following the Dell logo appearing, hit Ctrl+R.
      • Select the VD Mgmt screen
      • For each physical disk:
        • Highlight the RAID Card (e.g., PERC H700)
        • Press F2
        • Create new virtual disk
        • Use RAID 0, because we want to passthrough as directly as possible to the OS
        • Select that physical disk.
        • Leave everything to their defaults
  • Download the "Boot" image of https://rockylinux.org/download for your arch (probably x86_64). We decided to use RockyLinux because RHEL has gooood documentation and resources.
    • On package selection screen:
      • Minimal install with Standard, Headless Management, and System Tools package groups.
    • On network screen:
      • Enable network.
      • Set the hostname to -.
      • Print a physical laber for the server with the label maker.
      • Plug in an ethernet cable to top-of-rack switch.
      • Make sure the port is enabled in IRIS. It should be already.
    • On Time and Date screen:
      • Select Chicago.
      • Enable NTP.
        • Use ntp.illinois.edu.
    • On installation destination:
      • Select the first virtual disk (sda).
      • Set "Storage Configuration" to custom,
      • Click "Done" to edit partitions.
      • Make the following partitions:
        • 300Mib EFI System Parition /boot/efi (Standard Partition).
        • 100Gib xfs partition for / (Standard Partition).
        • Set swap partition (Standard Partition).
        • Rule of thumb, set swap equal to the amount of RAM.
    • On password screen:
      • Set the Root Password to a short passphrase.
  • Restart the server.
  • Use IRIS to find the IP.
  • Test SSH as root with root password.
    • For each manually-managed user:
      • Ask for ther desired username and SSH key. This user will not need a password. SSH key to log in is better security than a password, and there is little extra security added to having a password for sudo (the attacker would also need to have your SSH private key).
      • From a root shell, useradd --groups wheel $user && su $user -c "mkdir ~/.ssh && chmod 700 ~/.ssh && echo $key > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 640 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"
      • Test that the user can log in, run passwd, and test sudo -i.
      • Eventually we will have some unified system (LDAP?) of adding users to all the hosts with the same SSH keys.