(5)Server Installation and Network Services Setup Exam
     The Server Installation and Network Services Setup Exam is the last of the three exams required for RHCE certification. You are allowed 2.5 hours to install Red Hat Linux and configure it, mostly for different network services. Unlike in the debug exam, partial credit is allowed. You have access to the Red Hat Linux installation files, from the CDs or through a network server. Once Red Hat Linux is installed, you also have access to the Red Hat Linux man pages as well as any other documentation that you may have installed.

     No specific techniques or commands are required. Any reasonable technique is allowed if it gets you to the objective. For example, if you need to limit access to a specific service with iptables or /etc/hosts.deny, you can use either system. If successful, either setup can get you full credit for that part of the exam.

     You may need to limit access to network servers to specific users or other computers. However, this is a certification exam. Do not expect to have physical access to any other computer to test your settings. You will not have access to any outside networks such as the Internet. However, you can use any documents that you can find through the Red Hat Linux installation files.

(6)Server Installation Problem
     Install Red Hat Linux. The following conditions specify a network server, configured with some very specific partitions. You'll also need to limit access to some or all of your network servers to specific users, computers, entire networks, or more.

     Install Linux with the following partitions shown in Table 1. The sizes shown are minimums. Use a reasonable size for the Swap partition.

Table 1: Required Partitions
     You'll want a RAID 1 array for the /home directory where your users can store at least 1000MB of data. You'll also want a backup partition in case one of the main RAID 1 partition fails.

     Assume this computer has an IP address of 192.168.13.55 on the 192.168.13.0/24 network.

     Configure the following users for Red Hat Linux: nancy, randy, donna, mike. Make nancy and randy part of a group named angels. Create a /home/angels directory and allow them to share files without having to change permissions or ownership on any file they put in this directory. Do not give donna or mike read privileges on this directory.

     Make kdm the default window manager. Make sure users are directed to the console login when Red Hat Linux starts on this computer. Disable Telnet logins from remote computers.

     Enable ssh logins from one other computer on your network. Configure Samba to share the /home/angels directory with the users specified earlier. Configure a FTP server. Limit access to the LAN.

     Configure an NFS server to share the files in /home/mike only with users on the LAN. Configure a firewall to block all ports above 1024, except for those you might need to enable other network services. Configure Apache to serve an index.html page from within the /usr/share/doc/pam-versionnumber/ directory. Limit access to three other computers on the LAN.

     Set up a job to delete all of the regular files in the /home/mike directory on the second day of every month at 3:50 A.M. Create a menu option for GRUB that starts Red Hat Linux in single-user mode. Create another menu option that starts Red Hat Linux at a graphical display manager. Give appropriate names to these menu options.

     Make sure all new users, including the ones you've created earlier, get a copy of the kickstart file associated with this installation. Disable the use of the CTRL-ALT-DEL key combination for reboots.

     When you reboot your computer, all of the services that you've created and settings that you've made should be enabled automatically.

(6)Installation Discussion
     Since there is no one way to set up a Red Hat Linux configuration, there is no one right answer for the listed requirements. But there are some general things to remember. First, make sure that the services that you set up are active at the appropriate runlevels. For example, Apache should be active for runlevels 2, 3, and 5.

     You can set up the required partitions through Disk Druid or fdisk during Red Hat Linux installation. For the spare disk in the RAID 1 array, remember to configure the spare-disk parameter. If you don't remember how this is done, Red Hat Linux includes a sample /etc/raidtab configuration file in /usr/share/doc/raidtools-versionnumber/raidtools.sample.

     Remember your CIDR notation; 192.168.13.0/24 uses a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Use the SGID bit on /home/angels, and make sure to assign group ownership of that directory to angels. Make your default window manager through /etc/X11/prefdm. Remember, the console login is associated with runlevel 3 in /etc/inittab. You can also disable the CTRL-ALT-DEL key combination in this configuration file.

     Disabling Telnet logins from remote computers means that it's still possible from the local computer. You'll have to take this into account whether you edit /etc/xinetd.d/telnet, edit /etc/hosts.deny, or load an appropriate iptables command.

     Sharing /home/angels through Samba for specified users means adding them to the Samba authentication list with the smbadduser and smbpasswd commands. Limiting FTP access to the LAN can be done using techniques like those you can use for Telnet. Sharing /home/mike through NFS means configuring this directory in /etc/exports, and applying exportfs -a. Make sure that the appropriate NFS daemons are active, including portmap and rpc.mountd.

     Setting up a job to delete files in any specific directory on a periodic basis is a job for the cron daemon. You can create your own job with crontab, or you can set it up through /etc/cron.daily/tmpwatch. Menu options in GRUB are easy to create. The options discussed can be created by adding single or init 5 to the appropriate kernel command line.

     And supplying the anaconda-ks.cfg file to all new users is easy. Just copy it to the /etc/skel directory.