How to configure the system

Introduction This tutorial describes, how to setup an InstantServers-Server for your needs. You need your login details to our control panel and the login details to your iLO-KVM system. If you got them, let's continue...

System installation

The first thing you should check is wheather your desired operating system is available to mount directly from our control panel or not. So, go to our control panel: http://cp.instantservers.eu use your account-details to login there and click "dedicated servers" on the left. Then click on the server-id of your ordered system. Now scroll down to see the list of available iso-images. If your desired system is listed there, choose it by clicking on it and press the button "mount image". The image-file is now mounted to your system.
Now scroll up and open the iLO-website ("path to integrated Lights-Out") in a new browser-tab.



Enter your iLO-details and login. On the first site you get some information about your system. On the left side you see more links, that will give you furhter system status information (diagnostic, temperature, fan speed, processor, memory and information etc.).



To continue this tutorial, please open the "Remote Console" Tab on the left and click the "Remote Console" link. Now you can choose between two different remote consoles. It doesn't matter which one you choose (.NET or Java) both are very equal to each other and very easy to use.



For this tutorial, we choose the Java-version. One click on the "Launch" button at the bottom will bring up the Java-Remote-Console. After console has loaded, you will already see the boot-selection screen [if not, please reboot the system and press F11 during bootup]. Choose "1" (CD-ROM) to boot from the image, you have mounted via control panel. Then the installation will begin.



Optional: You can also enter your own image file at the virtual media section of iLO3 (http or ftp link; remember the 80 characters limit, which will not be checked by iLO directly!). Another way to use your own images is to connect them directly via Remote-Console. Open the Remote Console and click "Virtual Drives" at the top to connect your local drive to the server. WARNING: We suggest to use an online location of your media file! Mapping a local drive may result in a very slow copy-process of the files, since most of the home-dsl-connections are very limited in upload-speed. You can also contact us to copy a new image file from some internet location to our servers.



So, now you see the bootup-screen of the OS-image. You can continue the installation by starting the setup routine. Every OS-installation is different, so we can't describe every possible way. We concentrate on the installation of "Linux Debian 6" for this tutorial.

1. Start the installation by choosing "Install" at the bootup screen (and wait a few seconds)

2. Choose your language and location

3. Select a locale setting and keymap to use

4. The installation now loads all needed components, to continue the installation

5. Select "eth0" for NIC

6. You can cancel the DHCP-check by pressign return (it will fail anyway)

7. Choose "Configure network manually"

8. Enter your IP-Address (see your account-details email, you got after order or check control panel)

9. Enter the netmask and gateway (you can find the IPs in the account-details email)

10. Enter a nameserver or two (seperated by a space) you can use the nameservers of google: 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

11. Continue to configure the hostname (you can enter any system name you want)

12. At the "Domain name" screen, you can just press enter or delete the found domain name and then press enter

13. Now choose a very safe root-password. It should contain numbers and letters in lower- and uppercase and/or special characters

14. After entering the password a second time, you can now enter a name for the user without root-privileges (you don't need to)

15. Enter a username for a normal user. E.g.: user

16. And choose a safe password for it

17. At the "Partition disks" screen, you can choose to manually set up your disk space or to let the system create it automatically. We choose "Manual", to configure it to our needs.

18. Now you can set up your partitions. At least you need one mount point to "/" (the root-partition) and a swap-partition. We also add one "/boot" partition, where all the bootup files are stored.

19. A good example to use the partitions would be: "/boot": 100MB, ext4; "swap": (depends on your physical memory) we suggest a swap-space of at least 4-8GB; "/" (root): the remaining space of the disk, ext4

20. Be sure that the /boot partition has the "Bootable flag" set

21. Continue the installation by pressing "Finish and write changes to disk"

22. Now the disk(s) will be formatted and configured to your needs.

23. After this, the installation will continue automatically with installing and unpacking all system-files to your hdd.

24. If you use a netinstall-image, the install-guide will ask you which mirror to use. You should use a mirror to the nearest location where the server is located (romania or germany).

25. Just press enter at the "http-proxy-screen".

26. After getting more files, you will see a screen asking for the software to install. Here you can choose anything you need for your system. You can also install anything later in the system. A good way to start is to check "SSH server" (via spacebar) and the standard system utilities and then continue the installation.

27. This takes some more time, but after a while, the "GRUB boot loader" screen appears. Choose "Yes", to install the boot loader to the master boot record and continue.

28. Now your system is ready. The installation will finish by pressing "Continue" on the last screen. The system will now reboot automatically and boot into your new system.

29. After the system bootup has finished, you can connect to your server via SSH (putty) [if you did activate the SSH server at "26."].