6.1. Second Stage

The installation of Skolelinux/Debian-edu is divided into two stages, referred to as firststage and secondstage. The first stage starts when the machine boots from the Skolelinux/Debian-edu CD, and ends at the first reboot. The second stage starts when the machine boots from GRUB, and ends when the installation is finished and the machine reboots for all services to properly restart. It's in the second stage that you type the root password.

firststage usually takess about 10 minutes on a relatively fast machine, while secondstage takess a bit more time, about 15-45 minutes.

Notice the countdown in the last line in this screenshot. GRUB is configured to automatically boot Skolelinux/Debian-edu after 5 seconds (in this concrete screenshot the counter has reached 4 seconds). The countdown can be stopped by pressing one of the Arrow keys. The arrow keys are also used to choose which of the available Linux kernels you want to boot. The automatic boot is very handy for booting the system unattended.

In the GRUB configuration file, /boot/grub/menu.lst you can choose to change the default value for the countdown, the appearance of the GRUB menu, the name of the different kernels to boot, set a password, etc.

In this screenshot you have two boot choices.

Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.22-1-386 
Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.22-1-386 (recovery mode)

You choose by highlighting the kernel you want to boot, move between the different kernels with the Arrow UP/DOWN keys, and boot the chosen kernel by pressing ENTER.

Usually you would just boot the default kernel without making any active choices, that is the line that does not contain (recovery mode). The line containing (recovery mode) is used when you need to either do some repair or maintenance on the system, like when you need to resize the lv-partition /usr. When booting with the option (recovery mode) only a few basic services is started, no GUI. Booting with (recovery mode) is the same as Runlevel 1, which also can be reached from the command line by typing init 1 See man init.

Password Protecting Grub If you have a workstation, or a laptop that many users have access to, then it is advisable to set a password on GRUB, so that the users can't easily boot various unwanted kernels, or do mischief with the machine. By changing some options in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst you can tighten up the security when booting the machine. You can disable the possibility to boot the option (recovery mode), and also refuse your users access to the GRUB command line, unless they have the GRUB-password. FIXME, add examples from menu.lst See man grub-md5-crypt for how to encrypt a password in MD5 format

While booting Skolelinux/Debian-edu you will see a lot of seemingly cryptic messages scrolling by on your screen. These are useful messages from the Linux kernel.[2]

The password you are about to create, is the famous root password. With this password you will be able to do anything. Please read carefully the information provided on-screen.

This text is from skolelinux/src/rebuilds/shadow/debian/po Before proceeding, you need to set a password for 'root', the system administrative account. The root password shouldn't be easy to guess, and it shouldn't be a word found in the dictionary, or a word that could be easily associated with you, like your middle name. A good password will contain a mixture of letters, numbers and punctuation and will be changed at regular intervals. The root password is changed by running the 'passwd' program as root. Why such caution? The root account doesn't have the restrictions that normal user accounts have. A malicious or unqualified user with root access can have disastrous results. Note that you will not be able to see the password as you type it. Please enter the same root password again to verify you have typed it correctly.

Note that you will not be able to see the password as you type it. You must type it twice, the same way both times. If you do it wrong, you get another chance.

Changing the Root Password The root password can be changed from the command line with the command passwd when you are logged in as root; you can also use the graphical tool kdepasswd found in K-menu->Tools->Change Password if you have a GUI on your machine, see Section 12.3.1 for more info. Have a look at Section 12.1 to find out how to change the other administrative password, LDAP administrator.

After you have created the root password, the installation of packages in the second stage starts. Remember to insert the CD in the CD-ROM drive- you will be prompted to do so if you have forgotten. The rest of the installation takes about 15-45 minutes, depending on how fast your machine is.

You may now leave the machine, and take a well-deserved break. Have a refreshing drink. The installation will be completed without any further input from you.

After the installation is complete, a reboot is necessary in order to restart all services such as LDAP, DHCP, etc. See services for a list of services that works out-of-the-box with Skolelinux/Debian-edu.

If you have chosen to install only the profile mainserver, with no GUI, then you will also have no KDM, just a text-based login.

If you have chosen to install a machine that includes one of the profiles workstation or ltspserver, then you will be met by kdm

Here you login with

Username: root
Password:

You can use TAB to move between the fields Username and Password, and then press ENTER to login, instead of using the mouse.