Part VI. Technical appendixes

The appendixes in this section do not contain instructions that tell you how to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Instead, they provide technical background that you might find helpful to understand the options that Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers you at various points in the installation process.

Table of Contents

A. An Introduction to Disk Partitions

A.1. Hard Disk Basic Concepts

A.1.1. It is Not What You Write, it is How You Write It
A.1.2. Partitions: Turning One Drive Into Many
A.1.3. Partitions within Partitions — An Overview of Extended Partitions
A.1.4. Making Room For Red Hat Enterprise Linux
A.1.5. Partition Naming Scheme
A.1.6. Disk Partitions and Other Operating Systems
A.1.7. Disk Partitions and Mount Points
A.1.8. How Many Partitions?

B. ISCSI disks

B.1. iSCSI disks in anaconda
B.2. iSCSI disks during start up

C. Disk Encryption

C.1. What is block device encryption?

C.2. Encrypting block devices using dm-crypt/LUKS

C.2.1. Overview of LUKS
C.2.2. How will I access the encrypted devices after installation? (System Startup)
C.2.3. Choosing a Good Passphrase

C.3. Creating Encrypted Block Devices in Anaconda

C.3.1. What Kinds of Block Devices Can Be Encrypted?
C.3.2. Saving Passphrases
C.3.3. Creating and Saving Backup Passphrases

C.4. Creating Encrypted Block Devices on the Installed System After Installation

C.4.1. Create the block devices
C.4.2. Optional: Fill the device with random data
C.4.3. Format the device as a dm-crypt/LUKS encrypted device
C.4.4. Create a mapping to allow access to the device's decrypted contents
C.4.5. Create filesystems on the mapped device, or continue to build complex storage structures using the mapped device
C.4.6. Add the mapping information to /etc/crypttab
C.4.7. Add an entry to /etc/fstab

C.5. Common Post-Installation Tasks

C.5.1. Set a randomly generated key as an additional way to access an encrypted block device
C.5.2. Add a new passphrase to an existing device
C.5.3. Remove a passphrase or key from a device

D. Understanding LVM

E. The GRUB Boot Loader

E.1. Boot Loaders and System Architecture

E.2.1. GRUB and the x86 Boot Process
E.2.2. Features of GRUB

E.3. Installing GRUB

E.4. GRUB Terminology

E.4.1. Device Names
E.4.2. File Names and Blocklists
E.4.3. The Root File System and GRUB

E.5. GRUB Interfaces

E.5.1. Interfaces Load Order

E.6. GRUB Commands

E.7. GRUB Menu Configuration File

E.7.1. Configuration File Structure
E.7.2. Configuration File Directives

E.8. Changing Runlevels at Boot Time

E.9. Additional Resources

E.9.1. Installed Documentation
E.9.2. Useful Websites
E.9.3. Related Books

F. Boot Process, Init, and Shutdown

F.1. The Boot Process

F.2. A Detailed Look at the Boot Process

F.2.1. The BIOS
F.2.2. The Boot Loader
F.2.3. The Kernel
F.2.4. The /sbin/init Program
F.2.5. Job definitions

F.3. Running Additional Programs at Boot Time

F.4. SysV Init Runlevels

F.4.1. Runlevels
F.4.2. Runlevel Utilities

F.5. Shutting Down

G. Alternatives to busybox commands

H. Other Technical Documentation