Index of /MEDUSA

      Name                    Last modified       Size  Description


[DIR] Parent Directory        13-Nov-2009 21:03      -  

Q. What is this MEDUSA thing?

A. A small but versatile installer CD. It will fit on a 210M 3.5" CD
   and supports a variety of installations including Red Hat Enterprise
   Linux (RHEL5.4 Server & Desktop, RHEL4 Update 8 [AS, ES, WS, Desktop],
   RHEL3 Update 9 [AS, ES, WS, Desktop]), and Fedora (F11). This
   installer supports both x86 and x86_64 architectures for all RHEL
   & Fedora installs.

   In addition it includes bootable copies of DSL (Damn Small Linux) and
   RIPLinux which can help in a variety of ways including getting a new
   machine through netreg prior to installing whichever version of linux
   you prefer.

Q. Who is it intended for?

A. Mostly Iowa State on-campus folks will benefit from it. Installing
   RHEL3, RHEL4, RHEL5, and Fedora over the network (at least from the
   default locations) can only be done from ISU IP space. If you have
   alternate locations for these installs (other network trees, ISOs on
   hard drives, etc.) you can use it too.

Q. How does so much fit on one little CD?

A. Very clever compression techniques coupled with the magic of
   network-based installations. And the fact that Damn Small Linux
   is damn small didn't hurt either.

Q. How do I get it?

A. The ISOs and its md5ums can be found at

     http://cyclops.iastate.edu/MEDUSA/

   You can use many tools to grab the files including popular web browsers,
   curl, and wget. Check the date to be sure to get the most recent version.

   For example to grab the ISO:

     $ wget http://cyclops.iastate.edu/MEDUSA/medusa-2009-09-07.iso
     $ wget http://cyclops.iastate.edu/MEDUSA/medusa-2009-09-07.iso.md5

   Check for a valid md5sum:

     $ md5sum -c medusa-2009-09-07.iso.md5

   and if all went well you should see something like

     medusa-2009-09-07.iso: OK

Q. Now what do I do with it?

A. Grab a 3.5" CD (or a larger one will work too) and burn the image to
   your CD. Again there are many ways to do this depending on your system.
   Assuming a linux system something like the following should work.

     $ cdrecord speed=4 dev=0,0,0 -data medusa-2009-09-07.iso

   where the 0,0,0 is what is returned from

     $ cdrecord -scanbus

   for your CD burner.

   Check the image you just burned ... one way is to mount the new image
   somewhere, let's say it is mounted on /mnt/cdrom now. Then you can

     $ mkdir /mnt/loop
     $ mount -o loop medusa-2009-09-07.iso /mnt/loop
     $ diff -r /mnt/cdrom /mnt/loop

   Here no news is good news.

Q. Ok, I have the CD. Now what?

A. Boot a machine from the CD and pick something sensible from the menu.

Q: Do I need to enter "installation numbers" for RHEL5 installs?

A: Yes, make a note of the installation number next your choice from the
   grub menu and enter it into the installer when prompted.

Q: Don't I need to use an activation key when I register?

A: Not any more for your personal groups, it is easier to just use your RHN
   account username and password. You do still need to use an activation key
   if the system is going into any university group other than your personal
   group.

Q: Do I need to get the bootstrap script and run it to connect to the Iowa
   State University proxy server?

A: Yes. After your installation is complete you should obtain the bootstrap
   script by running the following command:

     # wget http://cyclops.iastate.edu/pub/bootstrap.sh

   You should then run the bootstrap script as root with

     # sh bootstrap.sh

Q: So what are the steps I need to do to install and configure a system
   using medusa to work using the proxy server and Red Hat Network?

A. 1 - Acquire the medusa ISO and burn a CD as described above.
   2 - Boot a machine with it and select the menu option for the distribution
       you want to install.
   3 - Answer the various questions that the Red Hat installer asks you.
   4 - When the installer finishes you will be asked to remove the medusa
       CD and reboot the system.
   5 - When the machine comes back up for the first time you will be asked
       to complete some additional configuration steps during the first boot.
       Answer these questions as you desire and use your RHN account username,
       something like isu-netID, and your Red Hat Network password to get the
       system registered with Red Hat.
   6 - Obtain and run the bootstrap script as described above.
   7 - Run up2date -u or yum update to finish updating your system to have all
       the current software on it.

Q: Something isn't working right. Who do I contact?

A: Unfortunately we can't test every possible combination of things people
   might try to do with medusa and sometimes something doesn't work right.
   If you have a problem using medusa please do take a minute to report the
   problem to us at redhat@iastate.edu. We will do our best to fix the problem
   as soon as we can and may be able to help you get around the problem in
   the meantime.