Lab Assignment #1: Installing Red Hat Linux

Due January 17th - 21st during your scheduled lab class.

Rob Brandon

Prerequisites

  • CST8207 GNU/Linux System Support
  • a computer with minimum i5 sixth-gen CPU, 16 GiB RAM, and >500 GB SSD
  • Windows 10 (Home, Educational, or Pro) is installed
  • the latest version of VMware Workstation Professional is installed
  • the latest version of Zoom is installed
  • a Red Hat account (check your College email for the signup link)

Deliverables

  • You have one week to do this assignment.
  • You are expected to have your virtual machine ready for inspection at the time indicated by your lab professor. Your lab professor will let you know what time you will demonstrate your work. If you are not sure what time you are demonstrating, then make sure to be present when your scheduled lab class begins.
  • If your virtual machine is not ready when your instructor calls on you, you will receive a grade of ZERO for this assignment!
  • Please be accurate and punctual.
  • Be prepared to use Zoom to demonstrate the Linux virtual machine that you will create for this assignment to your lab professor. Your lab professor may ask you to run certain commands, or run them himself. Your mark on the lab will be assigned by your lab professor.

Introduction and Overview

This lab will be completed on your computer.

You will install the 64-bit version of RHEL 8.2 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2) in a VMware virtual machine. You will be evaluated on how well your virtual machine meets specific criteria, listed below.

Download the ISO File

  1. Visit https://developers.redhat.com/products/rhel/download and download the version 8.2.0 x86-64 DVD iso file by clicking the associated Download (7.86 GB) button.

2.The RHEL 8.2 Binary DVD .iso file should start to download. This file is named rhel-8.2-x86_64-dvd.iso

Note: A no-cost Red Hat Developer subscription is automatically added to your account when you download RHEL 8.2 . You are permitted to install RHEL sixteen times for free.

Note: Don’t forget your Red Hat username and password. You will need this to register the system and attach it to your subscription.

Completing these steps are required for your system to download software from Red Hat.

Creating the Virtual Machine

Create a virtual machine in VMware Workstation, using the following procedure. Leave all default settings, except where specified below.

  1. Click Create a New Virtual Machine, or click File and then click New Virtual Machine….
  2. Select Custom(advanced).
  3. Make sure that Virtual machine hardware compatibility is set to Workstation 16.2.x.
  4. Select I will install the operating system later.
  5. Set the Guest operating system and Version appropriately.
  6. Name your virtual machine “WSusername”, where username is your assigned Algonquin College network user name. Change the Location parameter if you need to. Click Next.
  7. Allocate two processors with one core each to the virtual machine. If you have a quad-core Intel processor, you can allocate as many as four cores to the virtual machine.
  8. Allocate 4096 MB of memory to the virtual machine. Click Next.
  9. On the Network Type screen, select Use network address translation (NAT). You can use different settings here if you need to.
  10. Use the default settings for all the remaining options. When you reach the “Ready to Create Virtual Machine” dialogue window, click the “Customize Hardware” button.
  11. From the “Hardware” dialogue box, select New CD/DVD (IDE).
  12. In the right half of the dialogue box, select the Use ISO image file radio button. Click the Browse... button and locate the rhel-8.2-x86_64-dvd.iso file you downloaded earlier.
  13. Click the Close and then Finish buttons.
  14. Click Finish.

Run Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Power the virtual machine on by clicking the Power on this virtual machine button. Follow the instructions to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The procedure for doing this is left as an exercise for the student. Your virtual machine must be configured as follows:

  1. The hostname is WSuser1234, where user1234 is your Algonquin College username.
  2. The name of your user account is the same as your College username.
  3. The password for the user account is student
  4. The root password is redhat
  5. Contains an installation of the x86_64 version of RHEL 8.2.
  6. The Language Support install setting is set to English.
  7. The virtual machine can connect to the Internet and to the web.
  8. The Software Selection setting is set to Workstation.
  9. Do not select any add-ons in the Software Selection screen.

Demonstration

You must do the following, for a total of five marks.

  1. In the VM, display the contents of the file “/etc/os-release” (1 mark)
  2. In the VM, run “uname -m” (should be “x86_64” for a 64-bit install) (1 mark)
  3. View the “Virtual Machine Settings” in VMware and confirm 4 GB on RAM, 2 processors, and a 20GB hard drive (1 mark for correct hardware)
  4. Browse to a web site or similar in the VM to demonstrate Internet connectivity (2 marks).

Troubleshooting

If you have problems doing the lab, some of these steps might help you.

Verify the Downloaded ISO

When you run through the install process, the DVD image is verified for you. To verify the downloaded RHEL ISO manually, you must check the checksum of the ISO file you have downloaded. Errors can occur during file downloads, even if none are reported. It is very important to check that the files have not been corrupted in any way.

Instructions on how to do this can be found on the CentOS Wiki

Network Troubleshooting

The following suggestions may help you to get your network working.

  1. Internet connectivity for a VM in VMware Workstation usually requires using NAT or a bridged interface. Do not configure your virtual machine with a host-only network.
  2. If you cannot see a network interface, try adding the following line to your virtual machine’s .vmx file: ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000”
  3. If you network interface appears to be disconnected and you have made changes to your virtual network settings in the “Virtual Network Editor” in VMware, then the “NAT” setting on your virtual network adapter may not actually be connected to “NAT”. Use the “Virtual Network Editor” window in VMware to confirm which of virtual networks you have has NAT enabled. Use the “Custom: Specific virtual network” setting for your “Network Adapter” in the “Virtual Machine Settings” window in VMWare to explicitly select the virtual network you want to connect to (that has NAT).
  4. If you are unable to SSH into your virtual machine, the following suggestions might help:
    1. Try using the ping and tracert commands from Windows to confirm network connectivity
    2. Use the systemctl status sshd command to confirm that SSH is running

RHEL Troubleshooting

You can debug problems in emergency mode by using the journalctl command to view log and error messages. Error messages will be highlighted in red. Use the same keys you would use with less to navigate the output of journalctl. Press q to quit journalctl. Note that some error messages appear even during a normal boot. Use your judgement to determine which error messages are relevant to the failure of the system to boot.

VMware Troubleshooting

The most common problem with VMware Workstation since 2008 is when you receive the following error:

This virtual machine appears to be in use.

If this virtual machine is not in use, press the “Take Ownership” button to obtain ownership of it. Otherwise, press the “Cancel” button to avoid damaging it.

Ideally, you should click the “Take Ownership” button and then everything will work normally for you. If that doesn’t work, you can use the following procedure:

  1. Close VMware Workstation
  2. Delete any .lck or .lock files and/or folder you see in the directory containing the problematic virtual machine.
  3. Run VMware Workstation
  4. Start the virtual machine.

Note that you cannot increase the amount of RAM in a virtual machine beyond 3 GiB while it is running.

The following suggestions for VMware troubleshooting involve making changes to your host computer or the configuration of your virtual machine.

  1. Ensure that the following settings are turned on in your BIOS or UEFI firmware (you may not have all these settings, and some are different names for the same thing):
    • Intel Virtualization Technology
    • Intel VT-x
    • Virtualization Extensions
    • Vanderpool
  1. Try increasing the number of processor cores allocated to the virtual machine to two. If you have a quad-core Intel CPU, you might be able to allocate as many as four cores.
  2. Try uninstalling and reinstalling VMware.
  3. Try an older version of VMware.
  4. Don’t use VMware. Try VirtualBox instead. There are some instructions for installing RHEL in VirtualBox.

Changelog

  • Version 1.0
    • posted 8:00am January 10, 2022
  • Version 1.01
    • posted 3:50pm January 10, 2022
    • “Software Selection” setting “Gnome Desktop” should be “Workstation”
  • Version 1.02
    • posted 11:00am January 11, 2022
    • “Hostname” setting should be “WSuser1234”, where user1234 is your Algonquin College username.
  • Version 1.03
    • posted 11:30am January 12, 2022
    • removed information about creating a RHN
    • added RHN account to prerequisites
    • updated source of demo time information
  • Version 1.1
    • posted 11:30am January 13, 2022
    • added step-by-step instructions for setting up the virtual machine
    • this is to avoid Easy Install which you should never use
  • Version: 1.1