Installation of Rocky Linux 8 Operating System

Installation of Rocky Linux 8 Operating System

This document outlines a graphical installation of Rocky Linux 8 Operating System on x86-64 server hardware. Icareus Playout will be installed as a set of programs running on this operating system.

The Rocky Linux website contains some Documentation, e.g. Rocky Linux Guides, which can be helpful if you need more information.

Download Rocky Linux 8

Rocky Linux 8 ISO images can be obtained by download from Download Rocky 8.

Please select architecture AMD/Intel (x86_64), version Rocky Linux 8 and choose the DVD ISO. At the time of writing this, the newest version is v8.10.

You need to write the DVD ISO image to bootable media, preferably a USB stick. Note that the image size is about 14 GiB, so you need a USB stick of size at least 16GiB.

To create a bootable USB stick on Windows, one option is to use the free "Rufus" software.

Hardware requirements

Icareus Playout uses standard Linux servers and our software are HW agnostic.

Server minimum requirements are:

1.    4 core processor
2.    8GB memory
3.    1TB disk(s)
4.    Icareus Playout can also be installed to virtual machine running Rocky Linux 8. We suggest to allocate 8GB RAM, at least 50 GB disk space and 2 NICs.

For remote support, Icareus needs a TeamViewer, or VPN connection for server access.

For a normal Icareus Playout deployment on Rocky Linux 8, the disk usage is most often at least in the 10's of gigabytes, including the system and other installed software, but it's always good to have more space on / and /opt for e.g. backups or if the EPG database is large etc., that's why we recommend minimum 50 GB.

Rocky Linux 8 Installation

Note that the screenshots below are for Rocky Linux 8.8, but version 8.10 installs the same way.

1) Insert the USB stick and boot from it (select the boot media by selecting F11 when booting). On success, you will be greeted by a welcome screen.

2) Select the language to use during the installation, select e.g. English (United States) and click the Continue button.

3) The installer provides an INSTALLATION SUMMARY page for navigating to various configuration options.

4) Under LOCALIZATION, click on Keyboard, Language Support and Time & Date to configure your preferred settings for these.

In this example, we enable Finnish keyboard, continue using the English (United States) language and specify the Europe/Helsinki timezone.

5) Under SOFTWARE, we keep the same Installation Source. Click on software selection to install software. Choose Server with GUI as the Base Environment. As Additional software select

1. Development Tools
   
2. Graphical Administration Tools
   
3. Headless Management
   
4. System Tools
   

In the case that you know you need some other additional software for your environment, select that too.

Return from SOFTWARE SELECTION to the summary by clicking Done.

6) Back on the INSTALLATION SUMMARY page, click on Root Password under USER SETTINGS. Enter a reasonable root password, make a note of it or remember it, and press Done.

7) Next, under the SYSTEM heading, click Installation Destination.

Here you can configure the hard disk where the system will be installed. In this example, we only have 30 GiB local disk.

The purpose is to maximize the size of the root (/) partition and make it bootable.

On the INSTALLATION DESTINATION page, we select the disk and under Storage Configuration select the Custom
option. Click the Done button to proceed.

8) On the MANUAL PARTITIONING page, under New Rocky Linux 8.10 Installation, we create mount points.

Click on the link Click here to create them automatically.

9) Continuing with the MANUAL PARTITIONING, make sure that the root partition (/) is at least 50% of the disk.

For example if the disk is 1000 GiB, assign at least 500 GiB to the root partition.

You can leave the other settings as they are by default. Make sure you have a /boot and a swap partition, the installer will provide these automatically. Click Done.

10) Review the SUMMARY OF CHANGES. Note that nothing will be written to the disk at this point, only later when we Begin Installation (see below). If all is good, click Accept Changes.

11) Disable KDUMP. Back on the INSTALLATION SUMMARY page, click KDUMP under SYSTEM, disable it and click Done.

12) Configure networking by clicking Network & Host Name. You will see a list of Ethernet network interfaces, e.g. Ethernet (enp0s3).

13) Click on the toggle that says OFF to turn networking ON.

14) Click Configure... to configure settings for the selected ethernet interface.

15) In the Editing window select the tab General and select Connect automatically with priority. Edit other features of the connection if necessary. Click Save.

16) Back on the NETWORK & HOST NAME page, optionally change the Host Name.

The host name can also be changed later, when the system is up and running.

For example if installing a primary server, the Host Name can be playout-main. Click Apply.

17) On the NETWORK & HOST NAME page, click Done.

18) You can create another user under User Creation. This user can also be made an administrator of the system.

If you create another user, do not use the user name playout, because the Playout software installation will create the playout user automatically later with the correct home directory.

On the INSTALLATION SUMMARY page, make a final review.  If everything is OK, click Begin Installation.

19) At the INSTALLATION PROGRESS page, wait for the installation to proceed. This will take at least a few minutes.

20) When the page says Complete! you can click Reboot System.

You should remove the installation media (e.g. USB stick) from the server at this point.

21) Rebooting the server, if the installation succeeded you will see a boot screen and the system will start running.

Initial Setup

22) On the INITIAL SETUP screen, which appears when booting the first time, click License Information.

23) Accept the Rocky Linux EULA (End User License Agreement) by selecting the checkbox I accept the license agreement. Click Done.

24) There is no need to create a user at this point. If you choose to create one, please don't use the user name playout, because this is used by the Icareus Playout software.

Click FINISH CONFIGURATION.

25) On the Welcome page click Next.

26) On the Privacy page, disable Location Services and Automatic Problem Reporting. Click Next.

27) On the Online Accounts page, click Skip.

28) On the About You page, you have to create a user of the system. Use for example put your first name as the username and remember not to use the username playout here. Click Next.

29) On the Password page, enter a long and secure password for the user and Confirm it, then press Next.

30) On the Ready to Go page click the button Start Using ...

31) You'll arrive on the Rocky Linux desktop. Click Activities and test starting Terminal for your user.

32) In the terminal, type the su command to switch to the root user you created earlier. In the password prompt, enter the root password that you gave in installation step 6 above. On success you should see the # root prompt.

When done reboot the system. You can do this by typing the command reboot in root's terminal.

At this point please make sure that Rocky Linux starts running automatically after the reboot.

For example for Dell Servers you can press the function key F2 to enter the system setup and do necessary changes.

If the server gets stuck during boot time, the Rocky operating system doesn't start and this can lead to downtime in service.

Congratulations! If you got everything working so far, Rocky Linux 8 is up and running and you can proceed to configure the system so that Icareus Playout can be installed.

Proceed to Rocky 8 Operating System Configuration.

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