Installation And Configuration Of Ubuntu Server 17.10.1

Task

The first assignment comprises of a number separate tasks, described as follows.

The first step is to create a virtual machine in the hypervisor of your choice running the Ubuntu Server 17.10.1.

 You can download this from: 

http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/releases/17.10.1/.

During the install process, you are to put /home and /var on separate partions.

You are not required to install a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) stack.

Once the operating system is installed, you are to demonstrate connectivity to the Internet and more importantly update the operating system.

You are to document the steps and decisions taken to get the operating system installed on your virtual machine. Where you are required to make a decision you are to explain why.

Once you have completed the install, write a script called profiler.sh which obtains information on:

1. current processes running on the system by all users
2. filesystem capacity and utilisation information
3. open network connections
4. users currently logged into the system

This information should be collated and a report produced called report.txt. Each set of information should be proceeded by a header outlining what the information following relates to.

You are to document the steps and decisions taken to get the operating system installed on your virtual machine. Where you are required to make a decision you are to explain why.

The next step is to build, install, configure and run a service, in this case, a lightweight web server

1. install the developer/build tools for your Linux Server install
2. download, install and configure from source the lighthttpd server which can be found at: http://redmine.lighttpd.net. You can use the default options to install and build it.
3. Once installed demonstrate the lighthttpd service running
4. Finally, configure the runtime system (system) such that the service is invoked at boot time automatically.

Creating a Virtual Machine and Installing Ubuntu Server 17.10.1

For the installation of the Ubuntu server the 17.10.0 version is selected and installed using the VmWare Workstation. The report is created for demonstration of the proper working of the server and management of the relationship between the client and the server. The sole purpose of the linux server is to meet the request of the client and handle the request of the client. The server is configured such that it is able to handle more number of request and identification of the challenges faced during the configuration of the server. The different service that can be enabled in the server are identified and a study is made on the resources that are needed for setting up the client server environment. During the installation of the server many problems are faced and the issues are highlighted. For connecting the server with internet the configuration is set as NAT and the option for the installation of the LAMP is skipped with making the default choice as installing the server as a DNS server. After completing the installation of the server it is updated with the recent updates for the installation of the lightweb service in the operating system. The lightweb service is invoked for automatically starting the service at the time the server starts up.

For the installation of the Ubuntu server 17.10.1 it is downloaded from the link provided in the assignment i.e. https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/releases/17.10.1/ and during the installation of the server the /home is kept on one partition and the /var is kept on the other partition. The steps involved in the installation of the operating system in the virtual machine is shown using screenshot and attached in the report.

After the completion of the download of the create virtual machine option is selected on the VM Ware application and the image file is selected and the location for the installation of the operating system is selected for the installation of Ubuntu server.

The space for the installation of the server virtually is allocated such that it is efficient to installation different application and service in future. The space can be increased or decreased according to the requirement and availability of the free space in the physical hard disk of the machine.

The language for the installation of the Ubuntu server is selected as English for easier convenience.

For proceeding with the installation the install Ubuntu server is selected and the language is selected for the installation for the completion of the installation procedure.   

Separating Home and Var Partitions

The location of the server is selected as United States for selection of the time and zone for the installation of the server and providing service to the user connected in the network.

The hostname is set as default and it can be customized by selecting new name and the continue option is selected for proceeding with the installation of the Ubuntu server.

The username of the Ubuntu Server is given as the student name and the continue option is selected for the completion of the installation.

The account name of the user is selected as the full name of the user and by default the username is selected and the continue option is selected for proceeding to the next stage of installation of the server.  

A new password is set for the user and the user needs to use the password for signing into the account.

The password is re-entered and a validation is used for checking it with the previous password and the continue option is selected for proceeding with the next stage of installation of the operating system.

For meeting the criteria of putting the /home and the /var in the separate partition the partitioning option of the virtual hard drive is selected as manual.

The yes option is selected for creating a new partition and removing all the current partition.

The free space allocated to the virtual machine is displayed in the list and it is selected for the installation of the Ubuntu server in the free space.

The / option is selected for putting the / home in a separate location and the /var in the different location of the partition made on the virtual hard drive.

After the selection of the / mount option the root files are separated by placing the mount point for the partition. It is used such that the other users are not provided the access of the root files of the system and the security of the server is maintained.

The done setting up the partition option is selected for the completion of the partitioning of the disk and continue with the installation of the Ubuntu server.

The changes are written into the disk by selecting the option “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk”. Once the option is selected the user cannot go back into the system for the modification of the partition settings.

Creating a Shell Script for System Profiling

A final pop up message displays with the option yes or no for saving the setting the settings and writing the settings to the disk. After the selection of the option the installation process starts automatically and a series of process run for installing the server files in the virtual machine.

A pop up message is displayed showing the option for the installation of the Grub boot loader on the hard disk. It is used for the support of complex multiple file system and accessing the files by loading them into the RAM and executing on the start up of the system.

The continue option is selected for proceeding with the installation and finishing the installation of the Ubuntu server 17.10.1. The GRUB boot loader is used for mapping then files residing in the physical sector of the hard drive occupied using the kernel image of the operating system.  

A shell script is created with the name profiler.sh for displaying the information such as:

• Current processes running on the system by all users
• Filesystem capacity and utilisation information
• Open network connections
• Users currently logged into the system

For storing the output in a text file the command profiler.sh > report.txt is used and it stores the output of the shell script in a text file named with report.

For the installation of the lightweight weight web server the current system is needed to be updated using the command sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and after upgrading the system the following command is used for the installation of the lighttpd service.

The following command is used for starting the service of the lightweight web and the screen shot is attached for the demonstration of the configuration of the service in the operating system.

Sudo update-rc.d –f lighttpd defaults command is used for running the service on boot.

Conclusions

The preparation of the report on the installation and management of linux operating system helps in increasing the knowledge for the configuration of the Ubuntu server. An analysis is made on the different service that can be configured on the virtual linux machine for serving the different needs of the users of the client server architecture. The problems faced during the installation of the lightweight web package was evaluated and it solution was searched for the installation of the service. The terminal was used for the installation of the lighttpd server and it was configured such that the service runs at startup. W gained knowledge about running shell script and the procedure used for copying the output of the shell script in a text file. The output of the shell script can be used for auditing the security of the Ubuntu server and configure it according to the needs such that the security is improved. The main criteria for successfully deploy the server is the removal of the errors in the configuration and the management of the security of the server. The needs of the installation of the lightweight web server is also analysed and it has been found that configuring the server with the lightweight web service helps in serving relatively larger loads than the Apache server while consuming less memory.

Installing Lightweight Web Server

Cirani, S., Davoli, L., Ferrari, G., Léone, R., Medagliani, P., Picone, M., & Veltri, L. (2014). A scalable and self-configuring architecture for service discovery in the internet of things. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 1(5), 508-521.

DeHaan, M. P. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,164,749. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Donepudi, H., Bhavineni, B., & Galloway, M. (2016). Designing a Web-Based Graphical Interface for Virtual Machine Management. Information Technology: New Generations; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 401-411.

Durumeric, Z., Adrian, D., Mirian, A., Kasten, J., Bursztein, E., Lidzborski, N., ... & Halderman, J. A. (2015, October). Neither snow nor rain nor MITM...: An empirical analysis of email delivery security. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Internet Measurement Conference (pp. 27-39). ACM.

Felter, W., Ferreira, A., Rajamony, R., & Rubio, J. (2015, March). An updated performance comparison of virtual machines and linux containers. In Performance Analysis of Systems and Software (ISPASS), 2015 IEEE International Symposium On (pp. 171-172). IEEE.

Ferris, J. M., & Huff, D. P. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,547,407. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Hozza, T., Spacek, P., Trmac, M., Pandit, P. J., Simerda, P., & Weimer, F. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,544,278. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Jang, M., & Orsaria, A. (2016). RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide (Exams EX200 & EX300). McGraw-Hill Education Group.

Kumar, A., & Shelley, D. (2015). Debugging and Troubleshooting. In OpenStack Trove (pp. 149-164). Apress.

LaCroix, J. (2016). Mastering Ubuntu Server. Packt Publishing Ltd.

Merkel, D. (2014). Docker: lightweight linux containers for consistent development and deployment. Linux Journal, 2014(239), 2.

Petersen, R. (2016). Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Server: Administration and Reference. surfing turtle press.

Siljanovski, A., Sehgal, A., & Schonwalder, J. (2014, June). Service discovery in resource constrained networks using multicast DNS. In Networks and Communications (EuCNC), 2014 European Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Sinha, S. (2017). Linux Terminal, Basic Commands. In Beginning Ethical Hacking with Python (pp. 21-33). Apress.

Tsai, C. C., Zhan, Y., Reddy, J., Jiao, Y., Zhang, T., & Porter, D. E. (2015, October). How to get more value from your file system directory cache. In Proceedings of the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (pp. 441-456). ACM.

Zordan, S., Zanotto, M., Nieus, T., Di Marco, S., Amin, H., Maccione, A., & Berdondini, L. (2015, April). A scalable high performance client/server framework to manage and analyze high dimensional datasets recorded by 4096 CMOS-MEAs. In Neural Engineering (NER), 2015 7th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on (pp. 968-971). IEEE.