Shiv Kumar Goyal - Oracle Linux Express Guide version 8

Express Guide Oracle LINUX 8 Shiv Kumar Goyal Preface Let us starts journey with Oracle Linux. This book covers installation, file system structure, network, LVM, Repository Structure, NTP, Log management and many other aspects of Oracle Linux. The structure of the book is very simple and easy to follow. Thanks Shiv Kumar Goyal Contents Chapter 1

Linux is an open source project started by Linus Torvalds in 1991. It is Unix like operating system. There are thousands of Linux distributions in the market, broadly classified on their root distribution for example CentOS, Oracle and Scientific Linux are based on Red hat which in further based on Fedora Linux.

Fedora Linux is community project sponsored by Red Hat. Free V/s Paid Linux although is open source project but there are two types of Linux distribution available in the market, one is free and other one is paid. Free is self-explanatory you do not have to pay anything. In case of any problem, you can take help from volunteers working for Linux community. However, this type of support is not time bond. So companies who uses mission critical Linux servers and desktop computers prefers paid type of Linux distributions where they pay fixed amount as subscription and support fee.

These paid Linux distribution companies keeps teams of Linux experts to provide support and fixes. Oracle Linux follow middle path, it is free to use and update but support is paid. Oracle Linux distribution is derived from source code of RedHat. Oracle Linux is functionally and binary compatible with Red hat enterprise Linux. Oracle Linux generally removes Red hats branding and artwork. After merger of Redhat with IBM, Centos linux which was free alternative of Redhat is no more available.

Only product available from Centos is Centos stream which is rolling release. The customers that use to prefer Centos as free alternative of Redhat Linux now reluctant to use Centos in production environment. Oracle provides simple script to migrate your current Centos environment to Oracle Linux. Platform supported. Oracle Linux Version 8 installation images are available for following platforms:-

Image	Platform Supported
x86_64	Intel and AMD 64 Bit
aarch64	ARM 64 Bit

Types of images Standard installation image is in the form of ISO image only, however, you can also get Cloud image, Container image and Vagrant image. Chapter 2 As mentioned earlier you can opt for support of Oracle Linux if you are using the Oracle Linux in mission critical system, the life cycle of Oracle Linux support is following

Releases	General Availability	Premier Support Ends	Extended Support Ends	Sustaining Support Ends
Linux 3	Oct 2003	Oct 2011	Not Available	Indefinite
Linux 4	Feb 2005	Feb 2013	Not Available	Indefinite
Linux 5	Jun 2007	Jun 2017	Nov 2020	Indefinite
Linux 6	Feb 2011	Mar 2021	Jun 2024	Indefinite
Linux 7	Jul 2014	Jul 2024	Not Available	Indefinite
Linux 8	Jul 2019	Jul 2029	Not Available	Indefinite

Type of support Oracle provides two types of paid support for Oracle Linux.

The difference between the two type of support according to oracle site is bellow

Feature	Basic Support	Premier Support
24x7 telephone and online support	Yes	Yes
Access to enhancements, updates, and errata	Yes	Yes
Oracle Enterprise Manager for Linux Management	Yes	Yes
Spacewalk support	Yes	Yes
High availability with Oracle Clusterware	Yes	Yes
Comprehensive tracing with DTrace	Yes	Yes
Oracle Linux load balancer	Yes	Yes
Oracle Container runtime for Docker	Yes	Yes
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager	No	Yes
Ksplice	No	Yes
Oracle Linux Automation Manager	No	Yes
Oracle Cloud Native Environment like Kubernetes	No	Yes
Gluster Storage	No	Yes
Access to Oracle Linux software collections	No	Yes
Corosync and Pacemaker support	No	Yes
Premier backports	No	Yes
Lifetime sustaining support	No	Yes

Chapter 3 Oracle Linux downloads are available in several forms:

Format	Description
ISO images	Installation Media for x86_64 and Arm
Vagrant	For Vagrant Boxes
Container images	for x86_64 and Arm
GitHub Container Registry
Docker Hub	Docker images
Virtual machine templates	.ova format templates
Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 3	for Arm

In this book, we will cover only Intel platform installation. To download image of Oracle Linux follow these steps :- Go to oracle site https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html Select the version and platform in our case it is x86_64 under Full ISO Verifying the download Download the checksum file from bellow site https://linux.oracle.com/security/gpg/ if you have downloaded the image on Microsoft windows machine. Open the powershell prompt and give following command :- Syntax get-filehash path for isofile Example PS C:\> get-filehash D:\Download\OracleLinux-R8-U4-x86_64-dvd.iso Now open the checksum file and compare the output of the get-filehash command output. Media preparation To prepare USB media for installation on physical machine use following steps.

1. Download Fedora live USB creator from the Fedora Linux site.

https://getfedora.org/fmw/FedoraMediaWriter-win32-latest.exe

1. Double click the downloaded file and follow the installation steps.
2. Select Custom Image

1. Select the downloaded ISO file of Oracle Linux and press Open .

1. Select the USB device and press Write to Disk .
2. Wait to finish and press Close .

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