Part 1: Install Cent OS 7.0 on a Virtual Machine or Web Server

What is Cent OS?

Cent OS (Community enterprise Operating System) is a free operating system based on Linux kernel. It provides a free enterprise class computing platform while maintaining binary compatibility with its upstream source, Red Hat.

Downloading Cent OS 7.0:

Here, I will tell you how you can install Cent OS 7.0 on your web ­server. The installation requires you to download a copy of CENT OS 7.0 DVD.

The software can be downloaded for free from:  (http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-DVD.iso)

About Credentials:

For the purpose of this tutorial, I will be using 192.168.0.100 as the IP address and server1.example.com as the hostname.

These settings will be different for you so you need to make replacements accordingly.

Minimum Configuration for Web server:

Website Hosting Dedicated Server Requirements/Configuration:

• AMD Quad Core Processor / Intel Quad Core Processor (preferable)
• 4GB DDR3 RAM Memory
• 36GB to 100GB Hard Drives
• RAID storage (If you are looking for backing up your servers – not recommended though)

The following products are available at Memory4less.com

Installing Base OS:

Boot from your Cent OS DVD (on which you burned the installation software) and follow the video below:

After booting from the DVD drive, you have to:

1. Select your preferred language.

This installation procedure is quite similar to the ‘Windows’ installation process (if you have done that before). You need to select your time zone, keyboard language and similar preferences.

2. Select the time zone.

3. Select your preferred keyboard language.

If you choose more than one language, you’ll need to set a combination which will enable you to switch between the two keyboards.

4. Add language support by selecting it.

You can add more languages to Cent OS if you want. By default, English is already set.

Now browse installation media.

5. Add additional repositories at this point if you want. However, these can also be added later on so you need not worry about it. Press ‘Done’ to save your settings.

6. Partition the drives as per your requirements or let the OS decide. I prefer automatic configuration of partitions to keep matters simple.

7. Customize Network & Hostname.

I have added hostname as server1.example.com. I’ll now move on to customizing the Ethernet part by pressing Configure.

Add IPv4 Settings. You can add IPv6 Settings as well.

You can manage the network as per your requirements by adding LAN/WAN connection. Here, I’ve used a static IP.

8. Add entries according to the static IP environment.

I am using Address as 192.168.0.100, Netmask as 255.255.255.0, Gateway as 192.168.0.1 and DNS servers as 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4. These values will vary from different network environments.

After completing the process, click ‘Done’.

Enable the connection by tapping it. You can see the image below for reference.

9. Recheck all settings and press ‘Begin Installation’.

After the procedure starts, you need to provide USER SETTINGS with ROOT PASSWORD and USER CREATION. I’ll first go for root password.

Enter a password and press ‘Done’.

10. Now go for USER CREATION.

11. Create a user and change the password to anything that feels suitable to you.

Now wait for it to complete the setup.

12. After completion, you’ll need to reboot the PC.

13. Reboot the PC and select the OS.

14. Enter your login credentials for the root user.

Configure the Network:

You can edit or change the network file.

nano /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eno16777736

The file structure may vary for different devices. However, it is in the directory /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.

CentOS 7.0 minimal is not pre-installed with ifconfig command, so install it as follow:

yum install net-tools

You can also install Editors vim and nano in CentOS as:

yum install nano vim

Modifying/etc/hosts

Login with root credentials and adjust the file/etc/hosts as follow:

nano/etc/hosts

The values should be like this:

127.0.0.1   localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4

192.168.0.100   server1.example.com     server1

:: 1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6    

That’s all.

Congratulations on installing the Cent OS on your Server!

Let us know about any difficulties you faced or anything that didn’t turn out to be as mentioned in this tutorial. We’ll get back to you with the right solution.