Aerospace Software Ltd.

The Mandriva 2006 Missing CD Howto

For Mandriva 2006

Scope

Mandriva 2006 has many good points and a few warts, but it is still early days and this version will only move to the Corporate Club towards the end of 2006 - almost one year away - by which time the warts will be gone. Warts and all, this is the best Linux version available.

The Missing CD refers to the problem with ISO images. There is always something you want, that isn't on there. For example, the three CD free version obviously has oodles of missing stuff, but even if you download the 7 CD Powerpack, you still don't get the Apache web server RPM. That is on the Powerpack Plus - sigh...

As the amount of Free Software keeps growing, the problem keeps getting worse. This guide explains how to avoid The Missing CD blues.

Requirements Analysis

First, you need to determine what you want to use it for: Notebook, Desktop or Server. Each has its own set of requirements. On a notebook, you typically don't need server functions, while a desktop may need to be a hybrid between a full fledged server and a notebook.

You may want to install only one machine, or you may have to do 10,000. In the latter case, a fully automated install would be desirable off a local mirror. You may also be faced with a slow internet connection, in which case a FTP install off of a public mirror may be unworkable and a full set of CDs would be required.

Mandriva covers all the bases. If your connection is slow, purchase a boxed set of CDs. If your connection is fast and you have a local university with a public mirror, install from there. If you like having CDs, but don't have any money, use a bit torrent to download the Powerpack. If you need to install large numbers of machines, replicate your University's mirror onto a local machine and install over your LAN.

I therefore divided this guide into a few sections to show the various installation methods.

Install from CDROMs

The first thing to do, is to join the Mandriva Club. It doesn't cost much and then you can download the 7 CD Powerpack, which is good for most notebooks and desktops: MandrivaLinux Club

Once you have joined the club, you will get access to private mirrors and bittorrents. You can download the 7 CDs using Azureus. That may take a day or so.

If you need to install a server, then you have to purchase the Powerpack Plus, which contains even more goodies: Powerpack Plus

Installation is a matter of inserting the first CD and reboot. Mandriva plays nice in groups and will not destroy an existing MS Windows setup. If Windoze is on there already, then you will get a dual booting system with a boot menu where you can select what you want to do.

Install from a Public Mirror

An interesting alternative, if you feel adventurous and have a fast internet connection, is to do the install off of a public mirror. In this case, you only need to download the first CD, in order to create a network install CD.

On the first CD, there is a directory called images. In there, is a file called 'boot.img'. This is a small ISO file. Burn it to a new CD. This boot CD allows you to install from a number of network servers, including FTP and HTTP. I prefer FTP, since it is more reliable.

This boot CD can be used for local or remote installs. Since I have many machines, I run a local mirror and do all installs over FTP. I never use the full set of CDs. To do this, you need at least two machines. More about this later.

There are many public mirrors. You can find them with Google. Almost every university runs one. If your town has a university, then that is probably the best place to go. Here is the University of Calgary in Canada: http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/ and here is another good one on the flip side of the globe in Norway: ftp://ftp.uninett.no

So how do you do this? Insert the boot CD in your machine and reboot. You'll get a splash screen, press enter. Now the fun starts. Select your installation protocol, eg. FTP. Either use DHCP to automatically assign the network parameters, or do it manually if you know how: Set the local IP address to something sensible, eg. 192.168.1.20 and the Gateway to 192.168.1.1, whatever is appropriate to your network. You can get the network details using 'ifconfig' and a DNS IP address from /etc/resolv.conf on another working machine.

The configuration items are quite self explanatory, but to get going, you need a working machine and a web browser to figure out the paths on the public server. For example on http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/ the directory is: /mandrakelinux.com/official/2006.0/ and on ftp.uninett.no, the directory is: /pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/

For the user name, you typically enter 'guest' or 'anonymous' and for a password, you enter your email address. After some trial and terror, you'll get it going - write down what you have done, so it is less painful the next time.

Roll Your Own FTP Mirror

A mirror is not much use if it is out of date. Therefore, it is important that you have a system that will automatically maintain itself and get the latest and greatest periodically from your local University. Of course, they do the same and get their updates from Mandriva, so there is going to be a little bit of a time lag.

The secret to mirroring is 'wget' and 'lftp'. Get lftp from http://lftp.yar.ru/. This FTP client has many useful features including directory traversal, missing file detection, mirror capability and automatic retry.

Compile and install lftp with the usual drill:

# tar -zxvf lftp-3.3.5.tar.gz
# cd lftp[tab]
# ./configure
# make
# make check
# make install

Lftp can handle seven file access methods: ftp, ftps, http, https, hftp, fish and sftp. Quite a nifty little program.

In order to create a local mirror, you need a machine with quite a bit of free disk space. If you want both the RPMs and SRPMs, you would need about 30GB - about 5GB for the RPMs only.

Let's say you want your mirror on a partition called /spare in a directory called mdv2006. A manual lftp session will look like this:

# cd /spare
# mkdir mdv2006
# lftp ftp.uninett.no
> cd pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/
> mirror -c --only-missing i586 mdv2006

This will take a long, long, long time. Replicating the whole mirror can take a few days. The next time though, when you only need updates, it will go much faster and will complete in a few hours.So, by next week some time, you will be the proud operator of your very own Mandriva 2006 FTP mirror!

FTP Installation Server

The easiest way to serve up the RPMs and do a LAN based install, is using ProFTPd. If you haven't got it, do 'urpmi proftpd' to get it. It should work out of the box. All you need to do, is define a user for your repository.

Run 'userdrake' and create a user called 'mdv2006', with password 'mdv2006', shell '/bin/false' and home directory '/spare/mdv2006'. You can see where this is going - ProFTPd allows users access to their home directories by default. To avoid having to play around with the FTP setup, we simply define a user with a home directory pointing to the 2006 repository and Bob's your uncle.

Next year, when MDV2007 is released, create a new directory and user called 'mdv2007' and you can then install any which one you want, by username. This makes it really easy.

You should test it manually using a ftp client:

$ ftp localhost
user name: mdv2006
password: mdv2006
> ls

When you run 'ls' you should see your 2006 repository.

LAN Install

Once ProFTPd is working, you can install machines over your local network using the same process as discussed above to install from a public server. Now it is much easier, since the path is simply '/' and the user name and password is 'mdv2006' and you don't need a DNS - just use the IP of your server.

Since the whole problem is now under your own control, you'll find the process much easier and of course blazingly fast, since it is on the LAN and you are the only user of your FTP server.

To install large numbers of machines, you need to automate the install process. To do this, you can customise your boot CD so that it contains a list of the RPM files to install, as discussed in the Auto FTP Howto and Autoinstall Howto.

Fixups

The only mandatory fixup is to uninstall the catalogue program kat. It doesn't work - goodness knows why it was included in 2006 and can slow your machine down to a crawl. It is usually installed automatically, whether you want it or not:

# urpme kat

Will kill the annoying kitty...

URPMI

Whichever method of install you use, it is important the software installer rpmdrake can find the sources. The method used to install will be remembered by the system: If you installed from CDs, then that is what is configured. If you installed from a local FTP server, then that will be configured. If you need another method to find the RPMs you want, then you need add it manually to the software manager.

After installing the system from CDs, you should configure rpmdrake so it can get files from your local university mirror, instead of your CDs. (This is why people find Ubuntu easy to use - Ubuntu always installs stuff off a local university mirror).

Run MCC, Select Software Management, RPM Media Manager (bottom right). Click 'Add'. It will go to the Mandriva site to get a list of mirrors, a local university or at least one somewhere in your country, should show up. Select it for both Sources and Updates. This will take a little while.

Now when you go to run the Sotware Manager (top left) it will find whatever you need and install it, without any trouble.

If you need the 'contribs' (non Free) packages, then pay a visit to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org for an automated method to add them to the media manager.

La Voila!