Re: Linux Installer Question

--- Charles Hall <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello Blug People,
> I have a question about the Red Hat installer that I hope you may be
> able to help answer.
> 

I've only barely tasted RedHat once, and I didn't like it, so I have basically
very little experience with the installer. But I'm interested anyway.

> First some background:
> I have a linux server that was breached and now many commands result
> in seg faults and core dumps. I would reinstall but the server is in
> Los Angeles and I am in Beijing. I have all of the RPM's for the
> original RH8 install available on the server so I thought maybe I
> could reinstall the RPM's. The major problem is that rpm itself wont
> run. I am not sure why, the database rebuilds properly but the command
> still core dumps. I think it is a linking problem and thought maybe
> statically linked binaries may be of assistance.
> 
> I was thinking that the installer uses RPM's for the install process
> and was wondering how things like RPM and its dependencies are
> installed from RPM's when the tools are not yet available. I was
> thinking that with an install cd I may be able to get some extra tools
> that will allow me to install fresh files from RPM's. I looked at the
> install CD but there are no binaries.
> 

I'm sure that the installer installs from the RPM's, but maybe you can't see
the binaries because they are located in the ramdisk. Try finding the disk
images and then mounting them to get the files. Better still, I think you
should just get the sources and compile the utils statically.

Anyway, how do you connect to the server? By telnet? I think you can just make
static versions of system programs, then gradually replace them one by one
(starting with glibc). I've never handled a remote server myself, so someone
with more experience might want to help.

And RH8 is so old, why not follow the upgrade path, to, say, FC3? I was tempted
to say Slackware 10.1 but then... ;)


William Poetra Yoga Hadisoeseno

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