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This document provides instructions on how to download and use Red Hat installation files or images, commonly known as ISOs. In most cases, these instructions can be modified and used to download the necessary files for installing different Red Hat offerings on different architectures.
Please read through this entire document before you begin downloading. Additional resources worth noting include the Red Hat Network Reference Guide, the Download Software page of the RHN website, the Red Hat Linux Hardware Compatibility List, and the installation guides available at Red Hat Documentation.
Listed below are seven steps to follow both before and after downloading Red Hat ISOs.
You are downloading an entire distribution, typically an operating system. In most cases, you are then going to install the contents of that distribution on your system.
Before you begin downloading, you should understand two things:
On this second point, the time it takes to download the installation files for a Red Hat product depends greatly upon your connection speed to the Internet. For example, if you are downloading the installation disc images, then each image file will weigh in at just under 650 MB. This means that with a 56K modem connection it will take approximately 27 hours to complete the download of just one of several images necessary for installation.
If you intend for Red Hat Enterprise Linux to become the sole operating system on your PC, you may skip this step and begin to download the various files you need.
If you plan to transform your existing single-boot system into a dual-boot system, you will need to make room for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You can do this by adding a new hard drive or by modifying the existing partitions on the hard drive already in the system.
If you need more background information on partitions, refer to the relevant section in the appropriate installation guide.
To install Red Hat, you will need to download the ISO images of the installation CD-ROMs, even if you are planning to install only using your hard drive. Using a CD-ROM burner, you can also transfer each of these ISO images to a blank CD-R.
If your machine cannot boot from CD-ROM, you will need to create a boot diskette after downloading and burning the ISO images onto CD-Rs. You can find the appropriate boot diskette image in the images directory of the first installation image. You may also download the appropriate boot image separately from the ISO files on the FTP site. Follow these instructions to choose the correct boot image for your situation.
Note: The paths to the correct files are included in this document as HTML links, which may seem to suggest that you can use your Web browser to download these files via FTP. However, we do not recommend that you attempt to use your browser for this purpose. Rather, you should use a more advanced FTP client to obtain these files. If downloading from Red Hat Network, use curl or wget.
To gain access to the Red Hat FTP site, you must log in as 'anonymous' and use your email address for the password. To download from RHN, log in with the account used to purchase the Red Hat product.
ISO images containing the source RPMs and documentation are also available but are not required for installation.
After downloading the ISO images, you can look at Red Hat's MD5 checksums for the ISO images to ensure that your download was successful. Do this by running the md5sum program from a shell prompt against your ISO images and comparing the values returned against the ones published by Red Hat. The file from Red Hat containing the official md5sum values is called MD5SUM and is located in the same directory as the ISO images on the FTP site.
The following illustrates the correct syntax for the md5sum command:
md5sum <isofilename>
In the above command, replace <isofilename> with the correct file name.
If you are already running Linux, you can save an ISO image to a directory on your machine or another machine on the network. You may then mount the ISO image to look at or copy files. If you need to mount an ISO image located on the machine, use the following command:
mount -o loop -t iso9660 <isofilename> <mountpoint>
In the above command you will need to replace <isofilename> and <mountpoint> with the correct file name and mount point respectively.
Alternatively, you may burn the images to CD-ROM and mount the discs for installation. If a /mnt/cdrom/ directory does not yet exist, create it. Insert the disc into the machine and issue the command:
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
The purpose of boot diskette image files is to provide a way for computers to boot into the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program via a 3.5 diskette on computers where CD-ROM booting is not possible. There are also boot diskette image files available for installing over a network and installing via a PCMCIA device.
Once you have downloaded the first installation CD-ROM image, you can mount it using the command outlined in the section titled Mounting ISO Images or you can burn the image to disc as outlined in the section titled 4. Write files to media, if necessary, then mount the CD-ROM to access the boot diskette images.
All boot diskette images are located in the images/ directory on the first installation CD-ROM. The bootdisk.img file works for most situations. However, if you are performing a network installation, you will also need the drvnet.img file. If the CD-ROM drive or network card is connected to the computer via PCMCIA, you will also need to use the pcmciadd.img file. If the machine has SCSI hard drives or other block devices not supported by the bootdisk.img, the drvblock.img file will also be necessary Finally, if you are using a PXE server, use the files located in the images/pxeboot/ directory.
Once you have chosen and obtained the boot diskette image file required for your system, transfer it to a diskette as outlined in the section titled 4. Write files to media, if necessary.
If you downloaded the ISO images and want to install from your CD-ROM drive, you will need to write each image to a CD-ROM. For instructions on how to do this, consult the manual provided with your CD-ROM writing software and hardware or the Getting Started/ Step by Step guide for your version of Red Hat, available at: http://www.redhat.com/docs/. Note: ISO images are not saved to CD-ROMs in the same way as regular data files.
After you burn the CD-ROMs, label them CD 1, CD 2, CD 3, etc. based on the ISO image file name.
If you are attempting a hard drive installation, ISO images are now required. This means you no longer have to copy and install the entire file system tree from the installation CD-ROMs. Instead, copy the required ISO images into a directory, boot the installation program from a boot diskette, and type into the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program the path to the directory containing the ISOs.
If you need to use a boot diskette, use either rawrite on DOS-based systems or dd on Linux systems to write the boot diskette image file to a 3.5 diskette. See Red Hat documentation for instructions on how to use the rawrite or dd programs.
If you need a copy of the rawrite program, it is located in the dosutils directory on the first installation CD-ROM.
All Red Hat ISO images now have an md5sum embedded in them. It is strongly recommended you verify the md5sum on any Red Hat Linux CD-ROMs you create using downloaded ISO images. This will ensure the disc was burned correctly and prevent installation failures related to bad media.
To test the checksum integrity of the installation CD-ROMs, type the following at the installation boot prompt:
linux mediacheck
The installation program will prompt you to insert a CD-ROM and select OK to perform the checksum operation.
This checksum operation can be performed on any Red Hat CD-ROM in any order.
After verifying your installation media, follow the instructions in the appropriate installation guide to boot and run the installation program.
Once you have successfully installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on your machine, you should be certain you have the latest versions of the various software packages contained by the operating system.
The best way to do this is to use Red Hat Network (RHN). RHN allows you to easily update your packages and receive security notices customized for your system. Refer to http://rhn.redhat.com/ for details.
You can also check for Errata at http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/ and manually update your system.
If you would like to find out how to buy Red Hat subscriptions, please see the Red Hat Store.
Other places to look for help include the following websites: