fedora | Any IT here? Help Me!

Minimal network installation of Fedora 38 Server

This article will show the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution Fedora 38 Server edition. Fedora line offers many bleeding-edge Linux technologies than the more enterprise CentOS of the same RPM Linux family.

In fact, if the user needs a server with the latest Linux stable software Fedora server is the right and easy choice for a server!

It is interesting to compare to the other big rival Ubuntu Server, which has the latest software and upgrade path to the future release.
Here are some basic data from the default installation setup settings:

Installed packages – ~673 occupying 1.7G of space.
3 partitions when using automatic partition layout – boot efi, boot and lvm.
xfs used for the root and the boot partitions.

The Fedora 38 Server comes and updates to the latest stable Linux:

Linux kernel : 6.2.15.
Python : 3.11.3
GLibc : 2.37
OpenSSL : 3.0.8
systemd : 253.4

More detailed software overview here – coming soon (Software and technical details of Fedora Server 38 including cockpit screenshots).

Of course, one can expect the latest version of GCC (13.1.1), PHP (8.2.6), GO (1.20.4), MySQL Server (8.0.33), PostgreSQL (15.1), Nginx (1.24.0), Apache (2.4.57) and so on. Almost all of them are the latest stable version on their Internet sites.
Just be careful, the Fedora life cycle is 13 months from the release to the EOL (End of Life)! Of course, a dist-upgrade is supported and indeed, it has been flawless for years!

We used the following ISO for the installation process from https://getfedora.org/en/server/download/:

https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/38/Server/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Server-netinst-x86_64-38-1.6.iso

It is not a LIVE image so you cannot try it before installing it. The easiest way is to download the image and burn it to a DVD or USB stick disk and then follow the installation below (a USB flash drive could be also created from this ISO). The netinstall installation is as simple as having a good Internet connection to download the packages, the installation wizard automatically detects the closest mirror, from which it will download the packages. Essentially, the network does not differ from the ordinary installation except it expects to download the packages from the Internet. The good thing f network installation is that the bootable ISO is just 686Mbytes and the minimal install of the Fedora 38 Server will consume only around 560 Mbytes.

SCREENSHOT 1) Select the UEFI OS (KINGSTON …), which is the USB flash drive connected to the server.

This USB flash drive is created by the Fedora Official ISO described above.

Keep on reading!

Pages: 1234

Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 Xfce Desktop

After the tutorial of how to install Fedora 37 Xfce Desktop this tutorial is mainly to see what to expect from a freshly installed Fedora 36 Xfce Desktop – the look and feel of the new Xfce GUI (Xfce version – 4.16). The Fedora 37 Xfce Desktop is part of Fedora spins – https://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce/
Here you can find how to Install Fedora 37 Xfce Desktop.
The idea of this article is to see what to expect from Fedora 37 Xfce – the look and feel of the GUI, the default installed programs, and their look and how to do some basic steps with them. Here you’ll find more than 130 screenshots and not so many texts we do not want to turn this review of many texts and version information and 3 meaningless screenshots, which you could not see anything for the user interface because these days it is the primary goal of a Desktop system. You can expect more of this kind of review in the future.
This article is the first part of reviewing the Fedora 36 Xfce Desktop. The second article contains Xfce Settings screenshots are coming soon.

Xfce is a collection of programs that provides a features-rich desktop environment.

Here are some core elements:

Window Manager (xfwm4) – Handles the placement of windows on the screen.
Panel (xfce4-panel) – Provides a home for window buttons, launchers, app menu and more.
Desktop Manager (xfdesktop) – Sets desktop backgrounds, handles icons and more.
File Manager (thunar) – Manages your files in a modern, easy-to-use and fast way.
Volume Manager (thunar-volman) – Manages removable drives and media for Thunar.
Session Manager (xfce-session) – Saves and restores your session, handles startup, autostart and shutdown.
Setting System (xfce3-settings) – Configures appearance, display, keyboard, and mouse settings.
Application Finder (xfce4-appfinder) – Quickly finds and launches applications installed on your system
Settings Daemon (xfconf) – Stores your settings in a D-Bus-based configuration system.
A Menu Library (garcon) – Implements a freedesktp.org compliant menu based on GLib and GIO.
Thumbnails Services (tumbler) – Implements the thumbnails management D-Bus specification.

Fedora 37 Xfce screenshots

SCREENSHOT 1) Fedora (6.0.7-301.fc37.x86_64) 36 (Xfce)

Keep on reading!

Pages: 1234567891011121314151617

Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop part 2 – System Settings

This is the part 2 of the Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop review – Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)
In part 2 only the System Settings of KDE Plasma is presented – the central place to configure and tweak the KDE Plasma – the graphical desktop environment with customizable layouts and panels, virtual desktops and sophisticated widgets. Some of the settings require an administrative account and whenever it is necessary the Plasma platform shows an authentication dialog to escalate privileges.
It worth mentioning the KDE Platform versions in Fedora 37:

KDE Plasma version: 5.26.4
KDE Frameworks version: 5.100.0
QT version: 6.0.12

The System Settings reflects the above versions and the functionality they incorporate.
The main components are:

Appearance
Workspace
- Workspace Behavior
- Windows Management
- Shortcuts
- Startup and Shutdown
- Search
Personalization
- Notifications
- Users
- Reginal Settings
- Accessibility
- Applications
- KDE Wallet
- Online Accounts
- User Feedback
Network
- Connections
- Settings
Hardware
- Input Devices
- Display and Monitor
- Audio
- Power Management
- Bluetooth
- Color Corrections
- KDE Connect
- Printers
- Removable Storage
- Thunderbolt
System Administration
- About this System
- software Update

System Settings may also be started from the console with

myuser@mydesktop ~ $ systemsettings

Here are the System Setting screenshots:

SCREENSHOT 1) Click on System Settings to launch the “System Settings” program.

View and edit KDE and some Linux system settings.

Keep on reading!

Pages: 12345678910

Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

After the tutorial on how to install Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop this tutorial is mainly to see what to expect from a freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop – the look and feel of the new KDE GUI (version 5.26.4 of KDE Plasma). The Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop is part of Fedora spins – https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/
Here the user can find how to Install Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). Here it worth mentioning the included versions of KDE software for Fedora 36:

KDE Plasma version: 5.26.2
KDE Frameworks version: 5.99.0, upgradable to 5.100.0
QT version: 5.15.6

The idea of this article is just to see what to expect from Fedora 37 KDE Plasma – the look and feel of the GUI, the default installed programs and their look and how to do some basic steps with them, it is included also screenshots of the KDE settings program. Here you’ll find more than 200 screenshots and not so many texts we do not want to turn this review of many texts and version information and 3 meaningless screenshots, which you could not see anything for the user interface because these days it is the primary goal of a Desktop system. You can expect more of this kind of review in the future.
This article is the first part of reviewing the Fedora 36 KDE Plasma. The second article contains KDE System Settings screenshots and it is coming soon.

Some of the interesting screenshots

Logging
KDE Plasma Overview with Panel Toolbox
Fedora KDE main menu
Plasma Widgets
Activities
Install/Update applications with Discover
Install applications with dnfdragora
review of multiple installed GUI applications and games.
Dolphin – the KDE File Manager
Kate – Advanced Text Editor
KWrite – Text Editor

Fedora 37 KDE Plasma screenshots

SCREENSHOT 1) Fedora (6.0.7-301.fc37.x86_64) 37 (KDE Plasma)

Keep on reading!

Pages: 123456789101112131415161718

Install Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI)

This article will show the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution like Fedora 37 KDE Plasma with KDE for the user graphical interface. First, it is offered the basic steps for installing the Operating system and then there are some screenshots of the installed system and its look and feel of it. Here is another article available with more screenshots of the installed and working Fedora 37 KDE Plasma – Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop (KDE GUI). If the user is interested in Gnome as a graphical interface there are two articles on how to install Fedora 37 Workstation Edition, which comes with GNOME and the look and feel of the GNOME – Install Fedora Workstation 37 (Gnome GUI) and Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 Workstation (Gnome GUI)
This is the simplest setup. One hard disk device in the system is installed, which is detected as sda and the entire disk will be used for the installation of Fedora 37 KDE Plasma. All disk information in sda disk device will be permanently deleted by the installation wizard!

The Fedora 37 KDE Plasma Desktop comes with

Xorg X server – 22.1.5 XWayland is used by default
linux kernel – 6.0.7
KDE Plasma version: 5.24.3
KDE Frameworks version: 5.99.0
QT version: 5.15.6

For more packages and versions information the user may check out the Fedora 37 server articles – Software and technical details of Fedora Server 37 including cockpit screenshots though it is for GNOME installation.

We used the following ISO for the installation process:

https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/37/Spins/x86_64/iso/Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-37-1.7.iso

It is a LIVE image so you can try it before installing it. The easiest way is just to download the image and burn it to a DVD disk and then follow the installation below:

SCREENSHOT 1) Boot from the UEFI DVD-ROM device.

It is the same as the USB bootable removable drive. Choose the UEFI USB drive and boot the installation live drive.

Keep on reading!

Pages: 123

Software and technical details of Fedora Server 37 including cockpit screenshots

This article is for those of you who do not want to install a whole new operating system only to discover some technical details about the default installation like disk layout, packages included, software versions, and so on. Here we are going to review in several sections what is like to have a default installation of Fedora 37 Server using a real not virtual machine!
The kernel is 6.0.11 it detects successfully the Threadripper 1950X AMD and the system is stable (we booted in UEFI mode).
The installation procedure uses default options for all installation setups – Minimal network installation of Fedora 37 Server

Software

With Fedora Server 37 you can have

linux kernel – 6.0.11 (6.0.11-300.fc37.x86_64)
System
- linux-firmware – version: 20221109, release: 20221109-144.fc37.
- libc – 2.36 (2.36-8.fc37)
- GNU GCC – 12.2.1 (12.2.1-4.fc37)
- OpenSSL – 3.0.5 (1:3.0.5-3.fc37) and 1.1.1q (1:1.1.1q-2.fc37)
- coreutils – 9.1 (9.1-6.fc37)
- yum – Depricated and replaced with dnf
- dnf – 4.14.0 (4.14.0-1.fc37)
- rsyslog – 8.2204.0 (8.2204.0-3.fc37)
- NetworkManager – 1.40.6 (1:1.40.6-1.fc37)
Servers
- Apache – 2.4.54 (2.4.54-5.fc37)
- Nginx – 1.22.1 (1:1.22.1-1.fc37)
- MySQL server – 8.0.31 (8.0.31-1.fc37)
- MariaDB server – 10.5.18 (3:10.5.18-1.fc37)
- PostgreSQL – 14.3 (14.3-8.fc37)
Programming
- PHP – 8.1.13 (8.1.13-1.fc37)
- python – The default is 3.11.0 (3.11.0-1.fc37) and many more available – 3.10.8 (3.10.8-3.fc37), 3.12.0 (3.12.0~a2-1.fc37), 3.9.15 (3.9.15-3.fc37), 3.8.15 (3.8.15-2.fc37), 3.7.15 (3.7.15-2.fc37), 3.6.15 (3.6.15-14.fc37) and also includes the older 2.7.18 (2.7.18-25.fc37)
- perl – 5.36.0 (4:5.36.0-492.fc37)
- ruby – 3.1.3 (3.1.3-172.fc37)
- OpenJDK – the latest 19 – 19.0.1.0.10 (1:19.0.1.0.10-2.rolling.fc37) and also includes 1:17.0.5.0.8 (1:17.0.5.0.8-1.fc37), 11.0.17.0.8 (1:11.0.17.0.8-1.fc37) and 1:1.8.0.352 (1:1.8.0.352.b08-2.fc37)
- Go – 1.19.3 (1.19.3-2.fc37)
- Rust – 1.65.0 (1.65.0-1.fc37)
- llvm – the latest 15.0.4 (15.0.4-1.fc37), 14.0.0 (14.0.0-1.fc36) and the old 7.0.1 (7.0.1-7.fc36.4), 8.0.1 (8.0.1-3.fc37), 9.0.1 (9.0.1-15.fc35), 10.0.0 (10.0.0-13.fc35), 11.1.0 (11.1.0-6.fc35), 12.0.1 (12.0.1-2.fc35) and 13.0.1 (13.0.1-2.fc37)
- Subversion – 1.14.2 (1.14.2-8.fc37)
- Git – 2.38.1 (2.38.1-1.fc37)

Note: Not all of the above software comes installed by default. The versions above are valid as of December 2022, these are the minimum versions you get with Fedora Server 37 now, and updating it after the initial date may update some of the above packages with newer versions.

Installed packages are 679 occupying 1.8G space:. Note, this is Fedora Server Install, not minimal install. The server install includes the web console – cockpit version 254.

[root@srv ~]# dnf list installed|wc -l
679
[root@srv ~]# df -h /
Filesystem                      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/fedora_fedora-root   15G  1.8G   14G  12% /

Keep on reading!

Pages: 1234

Minimal network installation of Fedora 37 Server

This tutorial will show you the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution Fedora 37 Server edition. Fedora line offers many bleeding-edge Linux technologies than the more enterprise CentOS of the same RPM Linux family.

In fact, if the user needs a server with the latest Linux stable software Fedora server is the right and easy choice for a server!

Here are some basic data from the default installation setup settings:

Installed packages – ~678 occupying 1.7G of space.
3 partitions when using automatic partition layout – boot efi, boot and root.
xfs used for the root partition.

The Fedora 37 Server comes and updates to the latest stable Linux:

Linux kernel : 6.0.11.
Python : 3.11
GLibc : 2.36
OpenSSL : 3.0.5
systemd : 251.8

More detailed software overview here – Software and technical details of Fedora Server 37 including cockpit screenshots.

Of course, one can expect the latest version of GCC (12.2.1), PHP (8.1.13), GO (1.19.3), MySQL Server (8.0.31), PostgreSQL (14.3), Nginx (1.22.1), Apache (2.4.54) and so on. Almost all of them are the latest stable version on their Internet sites.
Just be careful, the Fedora life cycle is 13 months from the release to the EOL (End of Life)! Of course, a dist-upgrade is supported and indeed, it has been flawless for years!

We used the following ISO for the installation process from https://getfedora.org/en/server/download/:

https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/37/Server/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Server-netinst-x86_64-37-1.7.iso

It is a LIVE image so you can try it before installing it. The easiest way is to download the image and burn it to a DVD or USB stick disk and then follow the installation below (a USB flash drive could be also created from this ISO). The netinstall installation is as simple as having a good Internet connection to download the packages, the installation wizard automatically detects the closest mirror, from which it will download the packages. Essentially, the network does not differ from the ordinary installation except it expects to download the packages from the Internet.

SCREENSHOT 1) If you booted from the DVD/USB you would get this first screen – select “Install Fedora 37” and hit Enter

Keep on reading!

Pages: 123

Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 Workstation (Gnome GUI)

After the tutorial of Install Fedora Workstation 37 (Gnome GUI) this tutorial is mainly to see what to expect from a freshly installed Fedora 36 Workstation – the look and feel of the GUI (Gnome – version 43.0).

Xorg X11 server – 1.20.14 and Xorg X11 server XWayland 22.1.5 is used by default
GNOME (the GUI) – 43.0
linux kernel – 6.0.7

The idea of this tutorial is just to see what to expect from Fedora 37 Workstation (Gnome) – the look and feel of the GUI, the default installed programs, and their look and how to do some basic steps with them. Here the reader finds more than 204 screenshots and not so much text the main idea is not to distract the user with much text and version information and 3 meaningless screenshots , which the reader cannot see anything for the user interface, but these days the user interface is the primary goal of a Desktop system. More reviews of this kind will follow in the future …

For all installation and review articles, real workstations are used, not virtual environments!

SCREENSHOT 1) Fedora Linux (6.0.7-301.fc37.x86_64) 37 (Workstation Edition)

Keep on reading!

Pages: 123456789101112131415161718192021

Install Fedora Workstation 37 (Gnome GUI)

This article will show the simple steps of installing a modern Linux Distribution like Fedora 37 Workstation Edition with Gnome for the graphical user interface. First, it is offered the basic steps for installing the Operating system and then there are some screenshots of the installed system and its look and feel. Soon another article will show more screenshots of the installed and working Fedora 37 (Gnome and KDE plasma) – so the user may decide which of them to try first.
This is the most straightforward setup. One hard disk device in the system is installed, which is detected as sda and the entire disk will be used for the installation of Fedora Workstation 37. All disk information in sda disk device will be permanently deleted by the installation wizard!

The Fedora 37 Workstation comes with

Xorg X11 server – 1.20.14 and Xorg X11 server XWayland 22.1.5 is used by default
GNOME (the GUI) – 43.0
linux kernel – 6.0.7

Check out our article about what software is included in Review of freshly installed Fedora 37 Workstation (Gnome GUI).

There are previous installations howto articles for the older Fedora 36 – Review of freshly installed Fedora 36 Workstation (Gnome GUI), Install Fedora Workstation 31 (Gnome GUI), Install Fedora Workstation 30 (Gnome GUI).

The following ISO is used for the installation process: https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/37/Workstation/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-37-1.7.iso
It is a LIVE image so you can try it before installing. The easiest way is just to download the image and burn it to a DVD disk (or make a bootable USB flash drive) and then follow the installation below:

SCREENSHOT 1) Boot from the UEFI DVD-ROM device.

It is the same with the USB bootable removable drive. Choose the UEFI USB drive and boot the installation live drive.

Keep on reading!

Pages: 12345

lxc_attach_run_shell: 1333 Permission denied – failed to exec shell

An annoying error when using the LXC container tools like lxc-attach, which is really simple to fix.

[root@srv ~]# lxc-attach -n db-cluster-3
lxc_container: attach.c: lxc_attach_run_shell: 1333 Permission denied - failed to exec shell
[root@srv ~]#

This error just reports the bash shell in the container cannot be started and the SELinux audit file adds some errors, too:

type=AVC msg=audit(1665745824.682:24229): avc:  denied  { entrypoint } for  pid=20646 comm="lxc-attach" path="/usr/bin/bash" dev="md3" ino=111806476 scontext=system_u:system_r:unconfined_service_t:s0 tcontext=unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 tclass=file
type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1665745824.682:24229): arch=c000003e syscall=59 success=no exit=-13 a0=24412c6 a1=7ffe87c07170 a2=2443870 a3=7ffe87c08c60 items=0 ppid=20644 pid=20646 auid=0 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=pts12 ses=3304 comm="lxc-attach" exe="/usr/bin/lxc-attach" subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 key=(null)
type=PROCTITLE msg=audit(1665745824.682:24229): proctitle=6C78632D617474616368002D6E0064622D636C75737465722D33
type=AVC msg=audit(1665745824.682:24230): avc:  denied  { entrypoint } for  pid=20646 comm="lxc-attach" path="/usr/bin/bash" dev="md3" ino=111806476 scontext=system_u:system_r:unconfined_service_t:s0 tcontext=unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 tclass=file
type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1665745824.682:24230): arch=c000003e syscall=59 success=no exit=-13 a0=7f08b5e579a0 a1=7ffe87c07170 a2=2443870 a3=7ffe87c08c60 items=0 ppid=20644 pid=20646 auid=0 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=pts12 ses=3304 comm="lxc-attach" exe="/usr/bin/lxc-attach" subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 key=(null)
type=PROCTITLE msg=audit(1665745824.682:24230): proctitle=6C78632D617474616368002D6E0064622D636C75737465722D33

So clearly, the problem is in SELinux, and turn it off temporarily with

setenforce 0

Turning off the SELinux is not the right thing! There are two aspects to the problem:

Missing SELinux rules, which are installed with a special package container-selinux
Wrong SELinux permissions for the LXC container’s root directory. In most cases, the user just changes the default /var/lib/lxc/[container] to something new and the LXC works, but it breaks some LXC parts.

Installing container-selinux is easy:

dnf install -y container-selinux

Or the old yum:

yum install -y container-selinux

Then check the SELinux attributes with:

[root@srv ~]# ls -altrZ /mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer/
drwxr-xr-x. root root unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 ..
-rw-r--r--. root root unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 config
drwxrwx---. root root unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 .
drwxr-xr-x. root root unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 rootfs

The problem is var_log_t, which is an SELinux file context and it should be container_var_lib_t. Stop the container and fix the permissions. If the default directory (/var/lib/lxc) were used, it would not have this problem. Adding the SELinux file context definition to the new directory is mandatory when changing the directory root of a container:

[root@srv ~]# semanage fcontext -a -t container_var_lib_t '/mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer(/.*)?'
[root@srv ~]# restorecon -Rv /mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer/
restorecon reset /mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer context unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0->unconfined_u:object_r:container_var_lib_t:s0
.....
.....
restorecon reset /mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer/config context unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0->unconfined_u:object_r:container_var_lib_t:s0

All files permissions under /mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer/ should be fixed with the restorecon. Start the LXC container and try to attach it with lxc-attach. Now, there should not be any errors:

[root@srv ~]# lxc-attach -n mycontainer
[root@mycontainer ~]#

The files’ context is the right one – container_var_lib_t:

[root@srv ~]# ls -altrZ /mnt/storage/servers/mycontainer/
drwxr-xr-x. root root unconfined_u:object_r:var_log_t:s0 ..
-rw-r--r--. root root unconfined_u:object_r:container_var_lib_t:s0 config
drwxrwx---. root root unconfined_u:object_r:container_var_lib_t:s0 .
drwxr-xr-x. root root unconfined_u:object_r:container_var_lib_t:s0 rootfs

More on LXC containers – https://ahelpme.com/category/software/lxc/.