Falko Timme has written a detailed description about the steps to be taken to setup a Linux server based on White Box Linux that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS!), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.). Since White Box Linux is very similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux this tutorial should also work for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
The Perfect Setup – White Box Linux / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0
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I think, he chould have written more stuff in a little deeper detail. He should have explain more about partitions, because many different kind of servers such as mail, dns, web and etc don’t always have the same partitions setup.
Many different servers in a box isn’t always a great idea to do that for the ISPs and hosters. I am too lazy to go into details. However, I wouldn’t recommend this article to anyone.
The term ‘White Box’ reminds me of a PC you put under your TV so you can play games on the TV and/or use the PC as a Tivo-like device.
No, a white box computer is a no-name computer. In other words a computer that say, for example, Dell built but doesn’t have Dell’s nem on it. Half of all computers sold are white box. You are thinking of an “appliance” type computer. White Box Linux is a no-name version of Red-Hat Enterpise built from the Red Hat sources but with the Trademarks removed.
expounding on James’ comments … WhiteBox linux is indeed a very fitting name (the whole whitebox means generic thingie) …and it is a very good distro. Everybody, give it a spin.
A lot of people assume that because WhiteBox/Tao/CentOS are all derived from RHEL that their tutorials apply to RHEL.
I’d like to note that they do NOT. MySQL-Server is not a part of RHEL. You have to take their mysql src.rpm, rebuild it and occasionally update it because Red Hat won’t make updates for any security issues related to it because it isn’t a part of the base distro
Falko wrote all the howto’s on the 42go site.. including the debian one… http://www.projektfarm.com/en/support/debian_setup/index.html
he must work for them, in fact his old email address was there.
I can’t make out those screenshots.
Why doesn’t he just take screenshots while installing?
All you need to do is “ctrl+print screen” during the installation phase and all the screenshots will be saved in /root/anaconda-screenshots
what are the advantages in using redhat AS or whiotebox, instead of say systems built up from fedora? other than the support you buy iwth redhat ASm why is the software better for enterprises?
I hadn´t heard of whitebox before, but from what i read in the ir site it might just be what i was looking for. I´ll give it a try.
I wanted to learn a bit more about Oracle 10g and Oracle Enterprise Application Server. These products only support RHEL and Suse Enterprise from “out of the box”.
I tried to install Oracle Application Server on RH7.3 and RH9 with no success. There are too many tweaks that need to be done just in order to run the daemon.
Hopefully they will run on whitebox linux without much of a hassle…
MySQL is indeed part of RHEL … And his instructions work for RHEL. On the RHEL 3 Advanced Server CD-3 there are:
mysql-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
mysql-bench-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
mysql-devel-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
MySQL-python-0.9.1-6.i386.rpm
libdbi-dbd-mysql-0.6.5-5.i386.rpm
mod_auth_mysql-20030510-1.ent.i386.rpm
perl-DBD-MySQL-2.1021-3.i386.rpm
php-mysql-4.3.2-8.ent.i386.rpm
qt-MySQL-3.1.2-13.i386.rpm
PostGreSQL is also fully supported and installable.
The httpd-2 version that ships with RHEL 3 is compiled with mysql, php and pgsql support … the php is compiled with mysql and pgsql support.
My-SQL installs via the anaconda installer on RHEL AS 3 exactly the same way it does in RedHat 9 and Fedora Core 1. It is under the Database server group…
—————
And for the record … the only things that Whitebox changes from RHEL is some logos and trademarks from RedHat and they add yum as an update tool and a different version of up2date. They have also modified redhat-release and added whitebox-release so the product doesn’t advertise as
If something is on the WhiteBox CDs (and it’s not yum, whitebox-release, or up2date) … It is in RHEL.
People are allowed to have jobs and to support those products. Who better to discuss the way to setup an ISP server than an employee of company who produces software for that purpose?
just as phiberoptix touched on, most high end business software (like oracle) is only going to run on the Enterprise Linux products.
Also the Release Cycle (time to put out a new product) is 18-24 months … not every 6 months.
Support (bug fixes, security updates) is for 5 years, not 1-2 years for the normal Linux Distro.
So on servers, when you get it working, you don’t have to upgrade your installation every year to maintain security support … only every three or so years.
For workstations, after a little while the programs will be out of date … but if you want stability and to have the same programs on you desktop and servers, it is good for workstations as well.
WhiteBox provides all security updates and bug fixes that are released by RHEL via up2date and yum … and they provide ISOs to do the install just like fedora and RedHat 9.
I haven’t installed Oracle 10g on WhiteBox … but I have installed Oracle 9i on a test WBEL and a real RHEL server. The istallation proceedure was identical and both worked exactly the same.
I used the insructions here:
http://www.puschitz.com/InstallingOracle9i.shtml
He has Oracle 10g instructions here … but I haven’t used them:
http://www.puschitz.com/InstallingOracle10g.shtml
How come WB seems to be getting all the press in terms of RHEL srpm based distributions? Seems to me that CentOS which can be found here:
http://www.centos.org/
Is a community effort opposed to an individual effort (like White Box).
No offense but the guy just happens to use WB and wrote about it. Mind as well to mention Lineox http://www.lineox.com/
Actually I only had trouble with Oracle 9iAS (application server) on redhat 7.3 and 9.
I´ve tried to use some tweaks suggested on Werner Puschitz´s site (some errors were alike in the 9iAS Oracle universal installer) but with no success.
My post was very specific about the mysql-server package not existing. Nowhere do I see a mysql-server-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm in your post. That was my point. There is no MySQL Server package.
This is simply because RH is not supporting MySQL in RHEL. They’ve chosen to support only PostgreSQL as their Open Source DB of choice. If you install a MySQL Server on RHEL, you will be in charge of keeping MySQL up to date and secure. They’re not going to release an errata for the entire mysql suite of packages if only the server component is vulnerable because their concern is only the client and interoperability with MySQL. Which was my original point.
If WhiteBox/Tao/CentOS/etc. all follow just RH RPM’s, then you have to follow the same guideline of keeping your mysql up to date, and not rely upon your distro to keep the server updated. This is why I say that RHEL is not a good choice for a LAMP. Quick Point: I have both RHEL, WhiteBox, and TaoLinux. WhiteBox and TaoLinux actually have a mysql-server-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm.
By hughesjr (IP: —.dyn.grandenetworks.net) – Posted on 2004-03-31 12:49:05
MySQL is indeed part of RHEL … And his instructions work for RHEL. On the RHEL 3 Advanced Server CD-3 there are:
mysql-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
mysql-bench-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
mysql-devel-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
MySQL-python-0.9.1-6.i386.rpm
libdbi-dbd-mysql-0.6.5-5.i386.rpm
mod_auth_mysql-20030510-1.ent.i386.rpm
perl-DBD-MySQL-2.1021-3.i386.rpm
php-mysql-4.3.2-8.ent.i386.rpm
qt-MySQL-3.1.2-13.i386.rpm
PostGreSQL is also fully supported and installable.
The httpd-2 version that ships with RHEL 3 is compiled with mysql, php and pgsql support … the php is compiled with mysql and pgsql support.
My-SQL installs via the anaconda installer on RHEL AS 3 exactly the same way it does in RedHat 9 and Fedora Core 1. It is under the Database server group…
—————
And for the record … the only things that Whitebox changes from RHEL is some logos and trademarks from RedHat and they add yum as an update tool and a different version of up2date. They have also modified redhat-release and added whitebox-release so the product doesn’t advertise as
If something is on the WhiteBox CDs (and it’s not yum, whitebox-release, or up2date) … It is in RHEL.
what are the advantages in using redhat AS or whiotebox, instead of say systems built up from fedora? other than the support you buy iwth redhat ASm why is the software better for enterprises?
Stability. Consistency. Third party support.
Seriously, this is one of those questions that, if you have to ask, you shouldn’t be in a position to make decisions.
There’s some bad advice here that shouldn’t be followed. Specifically, one shouldn’t “sychronise” the system clock with a cron job that sets the time, but with NTP. This advice is even sillier given RHEL (and hence WBL) installs ntpd be default and makes it incredibly easy to setup.
(Not to mention you should modify crontabs with “crontab [-u user] -e”, not by directly editing /var/spool/cron/<user>).