Debian System Configuration

Log into your new system as root, and edit the apt sources list. Comment out the line for the CD-ROM source as shown below:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r4a _Etch_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20080804-15:10]/ etch contrib main

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r4a _Etch_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20080804-15:10]/ etch contrib main

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main

deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib

Update the package database and install updates:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade --show-upgraded

You will see a screen similar to the one below as you install the updated kernel:

Debian Kernel Update Warning

After the updates are installed, reboot the system.

reboot

After the machine reboots, log in again as root. Edit the networking configuration as shown below to set a static IP address for your server. Your settings may differ from the ones shown below. Be sure to replace "yourdomain.com" with your local network domain.

nano /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       validator.yourdomain.com        validator

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

nano /etc/resolv.conf

search yourdomain.com
nameserver 192.168.0.1

nano /etc/network/interfaces

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.0.16
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.0.1

echo validator.yourdomain.com > /etc/hostname
/etc/init.d/hostname.sh start
/etc/init.d/networking restart
ifconfig

Install the OpenSSH server software and the "screen" utility to allow easy remote administration of the server from another machine. This will allow you to operate the server in a "headless" configuration, without the need for a mouse of keyboard to be attached. Please note that you may need to configure your server's BIOS to ignore the absense of a keyboard at boot time.

apt-get install openssh-server screen

If you have installed your server as a VMware guest, you can proceed to the instructions for installing Vmware Tools on it, or continue with system configuration.

Continue: Installing the W3C Markup Validator

Table of Contents