Deploying Suse Linux Enterprise Server
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Installing Suse Linux Enterprise Server
The installation procedure for Suse Linux Enterprise Server, along with most GNU/Linux Distributions, allows you to setup the software for multiple purposes. Unlike other operating systems which simply "dump" a basic system during install, SLES lets you fine tune the system during install. This allows for a more streamlined and custom installation right from the start. To help you in planning for your SLES installation, here is a rundown of what to expect during install.
SLES Installation Overview Screen
Disk Configuration - The first item to seriously look into when installing SLES is the disk subsystem. Here you are presented with many, many choices. The important thing here is to remember that this decision can be difficult to change once the installation is completed. For instance, it can be extremely hard to re-configure where your data is stored.
Another important issue with the disk subsystem is to ensure that you maintain data integrity in case of failure. This means that you should look into either investing into a hardware RAID solution, or utilize the excellent Linux Software RAID solution included with SLES.
Software Selection - The software selection procedure is not as important as the disk subsystem as this can usually be changed after installation is completed. You will, however, want to investigate whether or not you want to implement an LDAP Solution on your server (covered later in this chapter).
When you select the software to be installed, you should consider who is going to maintain the server. If it is a GNU/Linux expert, you may or may not want to install the X.org Windowing system. If it is someone with moderate to little GNU/Linux experience you should definitely install a complete Desktop Environment to help them along. One thing to note is that you should probably not have the X.org Windowing System to automatically start on bootup. You do this by setting the "Default Runlevel" to 3 instead of 5.
User Authentication Sources - Once the installation procedure installs all the software you select, it will then restart the computer and re-launch the setup procedure to allow you to finish configuring the software for your environment. Most of these settings simply configure the server hardware, but the one you should really look at is the "User Authentication Sources".
The User Authentication Sources page allows you to specify how the server will authenticate the users to gain access to it's resources. This could be actually logging into the server or just accessing files that are stored on the server. The sources can be a local file on the server, an LDAP Server (local or remote), a Windows Server, or even a NIS Server or an eDirectory Server. If this server is simply a standalone server that will only preform a specific task on the network (such as DNS, DHCP or Web Server), a local source is enough. However if you are going to be providing files over the network through NFS or Samba, it is wise to utilize another server, or setup a local LDAP Server to ensure that the User and Group databases are conformed across the network.
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