3.3. Preparing Installation Sources
DVD
: You can burn the binary DVD ISO image onto a DVD and configure the installation program to install packages from this disk.Hard drive
: You can place the binary DVD ISO image on a hard drive and install packages from it.Network location
: You can copy the binary DVD ISO image or the installation tree (extracted contents of the binary DVD ISO image) to a network location accessible from the installation system and perform the installation over the network using the following protocols:NFS
: The binary DVD ISO image is placed into a Network File System (NFS) share.HTTPS
,HTTP
orFTP
: The installation tree is placed on a network location accessible overHTTP
,HTTPS
, orFTP
.
- In the installation program's graphical interface: After the graphical installation begins and you select your preferred language, the Installation Summary screen will appear. Navigate to the Installation Source screen and select the source you want to configure. For details, see:
- Section 8.11, “Installation Source” for 64-bit AMD, Intel, and ARM systems
- Section 13.12, “Installation Source” for IBM Power Systems servers
- Section 18.12, “Installation Source” for IBM Z
- Using a boot option: You can specify custom boot options to configure the installation program before it starts. One of these options allows you to specify the installation source to be used. See the
inst.repo=
option in Section 23.1, “Configuring the Installation System at the Boot Menu” for details. - Using a Kickstart file: You can use the
install
command in a Kickstart file and specify an installation source. See Section 27.3.1, “Kickstart Commands and Options” for details on theinstall
Kickstart command, and Chapter 27, Kickstart Installations for information about Kickstart installations in general.
3.3.1. Installation Source on a DVD
3.3.2. Installation Source on a Hard Drive
xfs
, ext2
, ext3
, ext4
, and vfat
(FAT32
). Note that on Microsoft Windows systems, the default file system used when formatting hard drives is NTFS
, and the exFAT
file system is also available; however, neither of these file systems can be mounted during the installation. If you are creating a hard drive or a USB drive to be used as an installation source on Microsoft Windows, make sure to format the drive as FAT32
.
Important
FAT32
file system does not support files larger than 4 GiB. Some Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 installation media can be larger than that, which means you cannot copy them to a drive with this file system.
3.3.3. Installation Source on a Network
3.3.3.1. Installation Source on an NFS Server
NFS
installation method uses an ISO image of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux binary DVD placed in a Network File System
server's exported directory, which the installation system must be able to read. To perform an NFS-based installation, you will need another running system which will act as the NFS host.
Procedure 3.4. Preparing for Installation Using NFS
- Install the nfs-utils package by running the following command as
root
:#
yum install nfs-utils
- Copy the full Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binary DVD ISO image to a suitable directory on the NFS server. For example, you can create directory
/rhel7-install/
for this purpose and save the ISO image here. - Open the
/etc/exports
file using a text editor and add a line with the following syntax:/exported_directory/ clients
Replace /exported_directory/ with the full path to the directory holding the ISO image. Instead of clients, use the host name or IP address of the computer which is to be installed from this NFS server, the subnetwork from which all computers are to have access the ISO image, or the asterisk sign (*
) if you want to allow any computer with network access to the NFS server to use the ISO image. See theexports(5)
man page for detailed information about the format of this field.The following is a basic configuration which makes the/rhel7-install/
directory available as read-only to all clients:/rhel7-install *
- Save the
/etc/exports
file after finishing the configuration and exit the text editor. - Start the
nfs
service:#
systemctl start nfs.service
If the service was already running before you changed the/etc/exports
file, enter the following command instead, in order for the running NFS server to reload its configuration:#
systemctl reload nfs.service
NFS
and ready to be used as an installation source.
nfs:
as the protocol, the server's host name or IP address, the colon sign (:
), and the directory holding the ISO image. For example, if the server's host name is myserver.example.com
and you have saved the ISO image in /rhel7-install/
, specify nfs:myserver.example.com:/rhel7-install/
as the installation source.
3.3.3.2. Installation Source on an HTTP, HTTPS or FTP Server
.treeinfo
file. The installation source is accessed over HTTP
, HTTPS
, or FTP
.
Procedure 3.5. Preparing Installation Using HTTP or HTTPS
- Install the httpd package by running the following command as
root
:#
yum install httpd
AnHTTPS
server needs additional configuration. For detailed information, see section Setting Up an SSL Server in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 System Administrator's Guide. However,HTTPS
is not necessary in most cases, because no sensitive data is sent between the installation source and the installer, andHTTP
is sufficient.Warning
If your Apache web server configuration enables SSL security, make sure to only enable theTLSv1
protocol, and disableSSLv2
andSSLv3
. This is due to the POODLE SSL vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566). See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1232413 for details.Important
If you decide to useHTTPS
and the server is using a self-signed certificate, you must boot the installer with thenoverifyssl
option. - Copy the full Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binary DVD ISO image to the HTTP(S) server.
- Mount the binary DVD ISO image, using the
mount
command, to a suitable directory:#
mount -o loop,ro -t iso9660 /image_directory/image.iso /mount_point/
Replace /image_directory/image.iso with the path to the binary DVD ISO image, and /mount_point/ with the path to the directory in which you want the content of the ISO image to appear. For example, you can create directory/mnt/rhel7-install/
for this purpose and use that as the parameter of themount
command. - Copy the files from the mounted image to the HTTP server root.
#
cp -r /mnt/rhel7-install/ /var/www/html/
This command creates the/var/www/html/rhel7-install/
directory with the content of the image. - Start the
httpd
service:#
systemctl start httpd.service
http://
or https://
as the protocol, the server's host name or IP address, and the directory in which you have stored the files from the ISO image, relative to the HTTP server root. For example, if you are using HTTP
, the server's host name is myserver.example.com
, and you have copied the files from the image to /var/www/html/rhel7-install/
, specify http://myserver.example.com/rhel7-install/
as the installation source.
Procedure 3.6. Preparing for Installation Using FTP
- Install the vsftpd package by running the following command as
root
:#
yum install vsftpd
- Optionally, open the
/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
configuration file in a text editor, and edit any options you want to change. For available options, see thevsftpd.conf(5)
man page. The rest of this procedure assumes that default options are used; notably, to follow the rest of the procedure, anonymous users of the FTP server must be permitted to download files.Warning
If you configured SSL/TLS security in yourvsftpd.conf
file, make sure to only enable theTLSv1
protocol, and disableSSLv2
andSSLv3
. This is due to the POODLE SSL vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566). See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1234773 for details. - Copy the full Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 binary DVD ISO image to the FTP server.
- Mount the binary DVD ISO image, using the
mount
command, to a suitable directory:#
mount -o loop,ro -t iso9660 /image_directory/image.iso /mount_point
Replace /image_directory/image.iso with the path to the binary DVD ISO image, and /mount_point with the path to the directory in which you want the content of the ISO image to appear. For example, you can create directory/mnt/rhel7-install/
for this purpose and use that as the parameter of themount
command. - Copy the files from the mounted image to the FTP server root:
#
cp -r /mnt/rhel7-install/ /var/ftp/
This command creates the/var/ftp/rhel7-install/
directory with the content of the image. - Start the
vsftpd
service:#
systemctl start vsftpd.service
If the service was already running before you changed the/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
file, restart it to ensure the edited file is loaded. To restart, execute the following command:#
systemctl restart vsftpd.service
ftp://
as the protocol, the server's host name or IP address, and the directory in which you have stored the files from the ISO image, relative to the FTP server root. For example, if the server's host name is myserver.example.com
and you have copied the files from the image to /var/ftp/rhel7-install/
, specify ftp://myserver.example.com/rhel7-install/
as the installation source.
3.3.3.3. Firewall Considerations for Network-based Installations
Table 3.1. Ports Used by Network Protocols
Protocol used | Ports to open |
---|---|
FTP | 21 |
HTTP | 80 |
HTTPS | 443 |
NFS | 2049 , 111 , 20048 |
TFTP | 69 |