Learning Server Admin for CentOS

[Bruce Whealton]

Hello,
I recently took an online course on Linux but it was based on Ubuntu. I wanted to improve my skills in system administration on the server that I use. They are using CentOS and it is a dedicated server. I have installed VirtualBox in a Windows Host environment. It may not be reasonable to ask my hosting provider to move my domains to a similar machine that is running Ubuntu. So, will CentOS install ok on VirtualBox? Should I only have one of the two OS running one time in VirtualBox? Here is another question, does CentOS have a desktop and Server version? With Ubuntu, I installed the server first and then added the desktop using apt-get. I understand the package manager for CentOS is yum. Therefore, I'm wondering if setting up CentOS to run in VirtualBox will involve the same steps and require the same types of apps but that I would use yum where I had used apt-get with Ubuntu.
Sorry if that last sentence sounds a bit naive. I mean the applications that CentOS needs to run in a virtual environment, and which serve as a glue between the CentOS, VirtualBox and the host OS, these apps would probably have different names, maybe. In the course, on Lynda.com, it was not explained why we need such and such applications and why certain command modifiers were used. That was mainly the case where the applications were installed to create the glue between Ubuntu, VirtualBox and the Host OS. At other times the commands were described more clearly.
Any advice on reading material is also appreciated.
Thanks,
Bruce

[hackinjack]

Hello,
I recently took an online course on Linux but it was based on Ubuntu. I wanted to improve my skills in system administration on the server that I use. They are using CentOS and it is a dedicated server. I have installed VirtualBox in a Windows Host environment. It may not be reasonable to ask my hosting provider to move my domains to a similar machine that is running Ubuntu. So, will CentOS install ok on VirtualBox? Should I only have one of the two OS running one time in VirtualBox?

Depends on the power of your host machine - if it can grok it, fine. Don't expect to run VirtualBox on a Raspberry Pi though

Here is another question, does CentOS have a desktop and Server version? With Ubuntu, I installed the server first and then added the desktop using apt-get. I understand the package manager for CentOS is yum. Therefore, I'm wondering if setting up CentOS to run in VirtualBox will involve the same steps and require the same types of apps but that I would use yum where I had used apt-get with Ubuntu.

Umm, yeah. Absolutely. You just need to get your head around yum vs apt on the 2 distro types. On RHEL type distros like CentOS you just need to make sure the gnome (or KDE depending on your pref) desktop is installed. It's still different from Ubuntu's default settings, but works the same, you need to customise the menus etc. to suit you. Also, the RedHat distros won't give you the "controversial" Unity desktop like Ubuntu does.

yum search gnome
is approximately equivalent to
apt-get search gnome

you need the gnome-desktop (or kde, or whatever you prefer)

There is a "yum groupinstall" for this,

yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"

... but I don't tend to use a desktop on RHEL/CentOS boxen, they're all servers to me and managed by puppet or command line to find out WTF puppet didn't do what it was supposed to!


At this point it's hard to advise because it's so down to personal choice.

Sorry if that last sentence sounds a bit naive. I mean the applications that CentOS needs to run in a virtual environment, and which serve as a glue between the CentOS, VirtualBox and the host OS, these apps would probably have different names, maybe. In the course, on Lynda.com, it was not explained why we need such and such applications and why certain command modifiers were used. That was mainly the case where the applications were installed to create the glue between Ubuntu, VirtualBox and the Host OS. At other times the commands were described more clearly.
Any advice on reading material is also appreciated.

Sorry, but I am not clear on your question at all - I see no reason (and from personal, recent experience) why CentOS won't run under a VirtualBox VM under Ubuntu, Windows, whatever or vice versa. I have needs to do exactly this, on my Ubuntu workstation for work, i.e. replicate our puppet master machine which is RHEL 6.2, and a couple of puppet slaves, one RHEL 6.3, another RHEL 5.7 - and for the hell of it one Ubuntu 12.04. No problem with any.

The key to most things is though, make sure the Vbox drivers are installed and running in the guest machine, otherwise graphics (especially) and some other things don't perform that well.

If you want to make the process of using/creating virtualbox images/servers really, really easy, check out VAGRANT

It's awesome! http://docs.vagrantup.com/v1/docs/ge...ted/index.html

Hope that helped!