CentOS

In this process, we will learn how to configure a static IP address for a new or existing CentOS server.

While a dynamically assigned IP address or DHCP reservation may be fine for most desktop and laptop users, if you are setting up a server, it is often the case that you will require a static IP address. From web pages to e-mail, databases to file sharing, a static IP address will become a permanent location from which your server will deliver a range of applications and services, and it is the intention of this process to show you how easily it can be achieved.

The process of setting the hostname is typically associated with the installation process. If you ever need to change it or your server’s Domain Name System (DNS) resolver, this process will show you how.

To Start With: What Do You Need?

For completing this process, you will require a working installation of the CentOS 7 operating system with root privileges, and a console-based text editor of your choice.

In this process, we will learn how to synchronize the system clock with an external time server using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the chrony suite. From the need to time-stamp documents, e-mails, and log files, to securing, running, and debugging a network, or to simply interact with shared devices and services, everything on your server is dependent on maintaining an accurate system clock, and it is the purpose of this proces to show you how this can be achieved.

In this process, we will show you how to change the language settings of your CentOS 7 installation for the whole system and for single users. The need to change this is rare but can be important, for example, if we accidentally chose the wrong language during installation.

In this segment, we will learn how to download and confirm the checksum of one or more CentOS 7 disk images using a typical Windows or OS X desktop computer. CentOS is made available in various formats by HTTP, FTP, or the rsync protocol from a series of mirror sites located across the world or via the BitTorrent network. For downloading very important files from the Internet, such as operating system images, it is considered best practices to validate those files’ checksum, in order to ensure that any resulting media would function and perform as expected when installing.

Here in this process, we will learn how to create a USB installation media on Windows or OS X. Nowadays, more and more server systems, desktop PCs, and laptops get shipped without an optical drive. Installing a new operating system, such as CentOS Linux using USB devices gets essential for them as no other installation option is available, as there is no other way to boot the installation media. Also, installing CentOS using USB media can be considerably faster than using the CD/DVD approach.

Here in this segment, we will learn how to perform a typical installation of CentOS using a new graphical installer interface introduced in CentOS.

Here, this article will attempt to discuss how to initiate the process of running a netinstall over HTTP while in the process to install CentOS 6. 

While installing CentOS 7 manually using the graphical installer utility is fine on a single server, doing so on multiple numbers of systems can be tedious. Kickstart files can automate the installation process of a server system and here we will show how this can be done. They are simple text-based configuration files which provide detailed and exact instructions on how the target system should be set up and installed (for example, which keyboard layout or additional software packages to install).

When you turn on your computer, the boot loader is the first program that starts up and is responsible for loading and transferring control to an underlying operating system. Nowadays, almost any modern Linux distribution uses the GRand Unified Bootloader version 2 (GRUB2) for starting the system. It has a lot of flexibility in configuration and supports a lot of different operating systems. In this process, we will show how to customize the GRUB2 boot loader by disabling the waiting time of the menu display and therefore improving the time it takes for booting the system.