Basic Debian Installation

Debian 10 "Buster" standard install from firmware-amd64-DVD (which includes the proprietary firmware that is supposedly not included in the other install disks)

• Do a normal 'Install' option from the boot menu
  • if that hangs on the network device detection, do the 'Expert Install' option from the 'Advanced' menu and select the default options
• select basic options, one partition formatting, and only the minimal software selection, but make sure the 'SSHD server' option is selected
  • For a graphic workstation, select the desired desktop from the list
• let it finish and reboot

Loading software

apt install net-tools zsh sudo rsync mlocate wget nfs-common

• the ssmtp package is not officially supported under buster
  • download the package from stretch and install

wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/ssmtp/ssmtp_2.64-8+b2_amd64.deb
apt install ./ssmtp_2.64-8+b2_amd64.deb

Configuration

Set up sudo for passwordless access

• visudo: add 'NOPASSWD:' in front of the last 'ALL' on the line beginning with '%sudo' so that it looks like this:

  %sudo	ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

• add user to the sudo group:

  usermod -aG sudo ewilliam

Set zsh as the default shell

• chsh to /bin/zsh (both root and ewilliam)
• copy ssh and zsh config files (both root and ewilliam)

scp -r calormen:.ssh .
scp calormen:.zshrc .
scp calormen:.zlogin . 

Setup backup to central file server

• copy scripts from calormen

scp calormen:/etc/cron.daily/backup /etc/cron.daily
scp calormen:/usr/local/bin/rsync_backup.sh /usr/local/bin/ 

• edit rsync_backup.sh, changing target directory and list of directories to backup
• create target directory on storage1 if it doesn't exist
• run /etc/cron.daily/backup to verify proper operation

Enable connection to the central log server

scp calormen:/etc/rsyslog.d/99-remotelog.conf /etc/rsyslog.d ; systemctl restart rsyslog

Load /etc/hosts

• debian's localhost definitions are slightly different in /etc/hosts ... so you can't just copy the centos version from aslan over -- but you can tack it onto the end after deleting the centos localhost line

Fix /etc/motd

Empty the /etc/motd file to get rid of Debian's obnoxious political statement:

rm /etc/motd ; touch /etc/motd

Configure SMTP relay

• Not the same as the ssmtp package for CentOS, even though the version numbers are very close
  • Will not recognize aliases
• Set 'hostname' in /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf to 'williams.localnet' so it will send to domain instead of host

Configure shared filesystem access

add these lines to the bottom of /etc/fstab

storage1:/files	/files nfs4 soft 0 0
storage1:/backup/systems/<hostname>/current	/backup	nfs4	soft 0 0

make the mount points:

mkdir /files
mkdir /backup

mount the filesystems:

mount /files
mount /backup

Fix the networking

For a graphic workstation install, you need to manually configure the network and uninstall network-manager. First, see Ethernet Device Configuration to put the right data into /etc/network/interfaces, then

apt autoremove network-manager