Installing CentOS Server on VMware

As I said at the forum http://forevergeeks.com/community/index.php/topic,20.0.html I’m planning to install and configure Asterisk – the open source PBX that runs on Linux. as you probably know a PBX make connections among the internal telephones of a private organization and when connected to a PSTN line, you can also use it to make regular phone calls to any phone. I have installed asterisk before using tribox which does all the installation for you including the operating system and asterisk. if you want to get familiar with asterisk you should try trixbox first, then move on to something more advance like I’m doing now. the reason why I’m doing this manual installation is because I want to get familiarized with CentOS and Asterisk, and learn from both of them as much as I can.

for this installation I assume you already have a physical machine available, or a virtual machine. if you haven’t started using virtual machines, I recommend checking the links below on how to get started.

http://forevergeeks.com/installing-vmware-server-20-on-windows-xp

http://forevergeeks.com/creating-a-virtual-machine-on-vmware-server-20

if you are using a virtual machine, remember to boot from the CentOS ISO image we will download below.

Getting the CentOS DVD ISO image

the DVD ISO image I downloaded is located at http://centos.secsup.org/5.2/isos/i386/CentOS-5.2-i386-bin-DVD.iso I recommend visiting http://www.centos.org/ website just in case there is an earlier version of CentOS.

I must warn you that the download is 3.7 GB big, so you need a good Internet speed connection, otherwise installing CentOS should be your resolution for next year, 2010!.

Installing CentOS

power up the virtual machine.

the CentOS installation screen should come up:

We want to install using the graphical mode, so just press ENTER on this screen.

next CentOS will ask you if you want to test the media CD before the installation. we are installing the OS from an ISO image, and if we press OK probably it will take awhile, so just Skip this option. ( press the SPACE bar to select )

at this point CentOS should launch the setup wizard. after awhile you should get to the following window:

I think we can safely click on Next on this window.

Choose your language on the following screen.

after choosing your language, just click Next.

next you need to choose your keyboard layout.

click Next, after choosing your keyboard layout.

clicking the Next button gives me the following warning about the partition table being unreadable. this is normal, the partition is new, and needs to be initialized in order for CentOS to start using it.

click on the Yes button.

on the following screen CentOS wants a partition on the hard drive. and because I don’t have any partition on this drive that I’m using I will choose the default setting : Remove Linux partitions on selected drives and create default layout:

Click Yes on the following warning:

next we need to configure the network devices. I chose the network device to use when I setup the virtual machine, and for now, I will have DHCP to assign the TCP/IP settings automatically.

Click on Next after choosing your network settings.

next choose your language by clicking on the map region.

click on Next after selecting your language.

next choose your root password.

after entering your root password, click on Next.

next the installation wizard will ask what type software you want to include on the installation, check Desktop – Gnome and Server and nothing else. the extra stuff can be installed later on if you need them using the software management.

click on the Next button

next, you get the screen that will begin the installation.

as the screen indicates, a complete log of the installation can be found at root/install.log directory after the OS has been installed. the options we have selected can be found at “root/anaconda-ks-cfg”

click Next to start the installation.

after rebooting CentOS, the configuration wizard will come up.

click on Forward.

next the wizard will ask you what services to allow through the firewall. I guess we are not too concerned about web services or anything else that needs access to this system right now, if later on Asterisk needs any of these services, we will add it.

Choose the Firewall default settings, and click Next.

next, you will need to configure SElinux settings. if you are wondering what is SELinux, I did a quick research and this is what I found out at NASA website.

What is Security-enhanced Linux?

Security-enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a reference implementation of the Flask security architecture for flexible mandatory access control. It was created to demonstrate the value of flexible mandatory access controls and how such controls could be added to an operating system. The Flask architecture has been subsequently mainstreamed into Linux® and ported to several other systems, including the Solaris™ operating system, the FreeBSD® operating system, and the Darwin kernel, spawning a wide range of related work. The Flask architecture provides general support for the enforcement of many kinds of mandatory access control policies, including those based on the concepts of Type Enforcement®, Role-based Access Control, and Multi-level Security.