UNIX or Linux Server Deployment document

Hi Friends,

You can consider below document as a rough sketch of Planning and deployment of UNIX/LINUX/HP UX servers. but wholly and solely, all configurations, Deployment of server, every step depends only and only on your Application requirement and Customer requirement. So lets brief it some points. All comments are welcome for editing and adding any new thing in the document.
Below points are some what applicable for Stand alone server.

Server Deployment Plan

Make a list of available resources for server. 

Inventory and Details of Resources available

S. No.

Descriptions

Quantity in Numbers

Size

Type

From Hardware server end only.

a. Inventory and Details of Resources available 

b. Pre Installation tasks

c. Server Installation Task  

d. Post Installation Tasks

Once we are proceeding towards creation of server, we have to take care of tasks to be done prior to installation of OS on the server. Some of the steps are mentioned below and steps can be added as per the requirement. 

Pre Installation tasks

It includes below points:-

1.       Verification of the Part with the specification of BOM.

2.       Verification of the Rack where Server will be mounted in DC. Which includes checking Power Connectivity with Redundant Power Sources, Dual Network Connectivity, Availability of FC cables for the server if required.

Server Installation Task

1.        Mounting the server in the rack.

2.       Connecting Power cables to power source keeping redundancy in place.

3.       Connecting Network cables.

4.       Labelling the server.

Post Installation Task

1.       Switching On the Server.

2.       Checking Server at BIOS.

3.       Verifying all the available and connected devices.

Pre Installation tasks includes in detail picture 

1	Hardware need to be checked thoroughly, whether it has all parts at its place. Checking the Hardware includes:-
a.	How many NICs are there and with redundancy or not?
b.	How many disks slots are there? What kinds of disk are given on the server? What disks it can support? Because using disks we will be configuring our system.
c	Mirroring is to be done at Hardware level, if yes then there should be a RAID controller card and the same can be configured at booting time. And if the servers are without RAID card then Software RAID will be configured at OS level.
d	How many HBA for FC connectivity are there or not with redundancy?
e	Power Supplies are in redundant or not?
f	DVD or USB device for Installation of OS or using Kick start Linux Installation can be done.
g	At the same time depending upon the requirement and Application requirement, we have to go with 32 or 64 bit of OS on Hardware.
h	If the OS has to be built as a standalone server then it is fine and if not then we have to divide the same into Virtual Partition and then install the server using assignment of resources on the system.

After Pre Installation, Server installation and Post Installation Tasks, we have to perform installation of OS on the server. So below are some of the steps.

Once we are done with above steps and after verifying all the steps, we can proceed with the installation of the OS on the server.

OS Installation Part

1	From Server OS Point of view, we have following task to do.
a.	What version of Linux RHEL they want and of what bit?
b.	What password for root has to be kept?
c.	Hostname of the server
d.	Configuration of NTP, DNS, Networks including IP, Gateway, Net mask, Routes.
e.	Installation of specified software and binaries given by Application team.
f.	Server Hardening:- Hardware RAID, Mirroring or Software RAID, Kernel Tuning, KDUMP, RPMs which has to given by Application team, Citrix Team, etc.
g.	Network Parameters :- Hostname, IP and VIPs, DNS, NETMASK, Gateways, routes,
h.	Security Parameters: - If need to be disabled or if enabled then IPTABLES need to be updated then we have to mention the same in IPTABLES list.

Once Installation part is done, we can proceed with the configuration of parameters of OS. Below are the steps that should be done to for building a basic LINUX server.

OS Configuration Part

1	File system:- the required FS has to be created whether in LVM or Veritas that need to be decided.
	Below FS if need to be created as a separate file system or a single FS, Below is an example:-
	/boot 200 megs
	/  > 10 gigs
	/usr > 3 gigs
	/var > 3 gigs
	/home remainder of space
	2 gigs
2	How much SWAP they need?
3	User and Group creation. User login policy, root login disable.
4	Services running on ports i.e. /etc/services.
5	Disabling the services with complete specification.
6	Nsswitch.conf local authentication.
7	NTP
8	MAIL i.e. SMTP
9	Hosts file update.
10	Securities
11	LIMITS /etc/securities/limits.conf (ulimits)
12	The Default INIT level need to be set, so that further reboot can be avoided.
13	Deciding the services or daemon need to run always.
14	Stopping all those daemons which are not needed and should be stopped using chkconfig.
15	Installing the Networker or AVAMAR or RMAN backup client for taking backup of the OS.

The above also includes Performance Tuning Parameters, but that can be done with taking any with taking performance and experience faced on previous server. We can test other kernel tuning performance  parameters on test servers first and then should go the kernel tuning. Deciding the server performance and behavior is a big task. so it should be done with thorough knowledge. Knowledge of requirement and with following proper Linux/HP doc. Configuring the services and parameters, we can take backup of files and configuration done. So that each and every configured file remains safe. In our scenario the Network IPs and Details are given by Network Team so we have to check with them for the Network details.

Network Configuration Parameter

 IPs , Gateways, Routes need to be given by network Team at your infra. 

 All above points are valid for stand alone server and have 

  There are so many things to add in this. will be adding in next blog. thanks for reading. all comments invited.


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Amit Chopra