On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Brendan Dacre wrote:
> I am doing a number of installs with different distributions and
> different hardware (for the purposes of testing and learning). These
> installations succeed to varying degrees including zero. On the
> non-zero installs, I often want to fix or customize the installation by
> editing various configuration files (if I can figure out which one I
> want).
the only way to learn.. but very frustrating in the short term
> So I have two main questions:
> (1) On a RedHat v7.1 installation, where is the hostname set? Do I
> need to specify a fully qualified name for the host? If so, do I need
> to otherwise set the default domain of the host and where?
/etc/sysconfig/network
on my system I have a fully qualified hostname, and the domain is in the
same file anyway.
HOSTNAME=fast.kenpro.com.au
DOMAINNAME=kenpro.com.au
>
> (2) In general, is there a complete reference of the configuration
> files and what you set in them that I can refer to in future (rather
> than asking dumb questions I can then RTFM and ask smart(???)
> questions)?
My experience is to ask succinct dumb questions after making a serious
attempt to read the docos. There are very few docos that are really as
good as they should be for anything to do with computers. Linux is at
least as good as windows in my limited experience. No one seems to be
offended by a serious attempt to learn, and some of us remember what it's
like to know nothing.
When I've asked dumb questions here (SLUG), i've either got deafening
silence or i've been overwhelmed by intelligent responses, and I can't
figure out why i get one or the other....
> Are the files distribution specific?
Basically, yes, although there are quite a few consistencies. RedHat seems
to be more sane than they used to be. Debian is the most sane of all as
far as I can see, but also the most demanding for the beginner because
nothing much is assumed during install. In theory, all configs should be
in /etc so it's just a matter of patience and you will find the one you
want eventually.
If i were you, and assuming you have the time, I would do:
#cd /etc
#ls
then work your way through the files and directories doing:
#less one.file.at.a.time.conf
and see what each looks like. It's amazing what you will discover. Lots of
them have man files that will help, such as:
#man passwd
#man hosts.allow
although I find the man files more confusing than helpful until you start
to get the hang of it. man files are often useless to learn from. They are
excellent for remembering switches or file layouts or such.
> If so, and assuming
> this information exists, where would I find such information for at
> least RedHat/Mandrake, Debian and Slackware?
Try:
$lynx /usr/share/doc/
lotsa good stuff there.
Otherwise Google is your friend. Learn how to use google.. it's a black
art. Typing in the right key word combination takes patience. I start with
the words: linux, how-to, debian [or RedHat] then a few specific words.
Others may have better methods. www.tlpd.org is useful too. www.debian.org
is ok although the last time i looked it's search function was broken, but
personally I always found the redhat site useless. I'm sure others will
disagree.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any alternative to the school of
long frustrating nights [see note below]. Not many programmers are good
doco writers. Acronyms are painfully frustrating, obtuse and endemic. Some
doco writers belong to the freemason school of computing, ie, "it took me
a lifetime to become part of the secret society, and it's going to damn
well take the same time for you".
I've bought lots of books after being told that they would give me all the
answers, but none of them did. Often they are out of date by the time you
get them anyway. I don't think I've ever used a dead tree book to solve a
linux configuration problem.
> And finally, I have seen
> mention in some documentation some sort of effort towards standardising
> various aspects of Linux, is this happening with the configuration files
> (and if so where)?
Out near airborne pig country.
David.
[note]: regarding long frustrating nights, and a cautionary tale.
recently I was setting up a new pppd dial up server. Nearly every doco
tells you how to dial OUT, but hardly anything is around for dialling IN.
I set up the new (debian) pppd, configured it (I've done this before, so
it should be a snap). No ping response. I was using a macintosh OS9 as a
client for testing and I knew that the mac was definitely configured
correctly.
Now.. it turns out that MacOS9 has one oddity - when newly booted, it
doesn't load it's tcp/ip extention until it actually performs some tcp/ip
function (such as browsing or mail, etc). I was getting a perfect
connection to the server, but when I tried to ping FROM THE SERVER end,
the mac didn't respond. Naturally, that led me to think that the configs
were wrong, so I changed them, making the situation progressively worse.
It was four days before i blew away everything, started from scratch and
actually tried a browser on the mac that i realised what was happening.
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
