Blog

2009/02/19

Install Debian Lenny on the server

I removed the 'Hauppauge HVR 1300' card from my MythTV box. At the same time I downloaded the ISO for 'Lenny'. I installed the MythTV box in my rack and connected it up to my KVM and network.

When I booted the server with the 'Lenny' installation CD the screen (a very old 14") came alive but was not readable. I did not understand why until I decided to connect the 17" that I had used to install MythTV. Now I could see everything. I now could see that I needed to press DEL to get into the BIOS. The output was set to CRT,TV. I changed it to CRT. When I connected the 14" screen I was able to read the screen. The installation of 'Lenny' was a piece of cake. Just 3 little problems.

  1. I was unable to change the default LVM configuration. I will need to do that later. I need a separate volume for sharable folders.
  2. This server becomes my DNS. I decided to give the servers IP address as DNS. As a result I could not access the internet. I will add the entries in the /etc/hosts file until the DNS service is running.
  3. Because I could not access the internet the /etc/apt/sources.list was not modified. The 'local' package server was not defined so I had to add this myself: 
    deb http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

The first package I installed (after looking for patches) was SSH. This way I am able to connect through SSH to my server from anywhere in my network.

aptitude update
aptitude safe-upgrade
aptitude install ssh

Next in line is NTP, DNS, and DHCP.

aptitude install bind9 dhcp3-server ntp

NTP installed without a problem. No extra configuration is needed. DNS also installed without a problem. As a result I can now ping freely to the internet so I removed the lines from the /etc/hosts file. I need to configure it further. DHCP gave more problems. The startup failed. The problem was that the configuration files /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf and /etc/default/dhcp3-server were not modified. I put in some values and then the service started. I need to configure it further. Look at the pages for more information.