One advantage that Host Virtual provided was a more recent Gentoo image.  Linode only offers a Gentoo 2007.0 install, which it doesn’t even list as a current distribution.  No worries, in this post I describe the steps I took to install a fresh Gentoo 2008.0 amd64 image on my new Linode!

Before we get started, some of the things I wanted on my system:

• x86_64 kernel running natively compiled 64-bit applications
• ReiserFS filesystem instead of ext3
• Basic LAMP server and no more

1. Create recovery configuration profile

1. From the Linode Manager Dashboard, click Deploy a Linux Distribution
2. Select an Unbuntu 8.10 64-bit (or similar 64-bit OS) with a 300MB disk drive. If you want swap space, you should configure that here.
3. Click Create Profile
4. Change the name of the profile to “Recovery Ubuntu 64bit”

2. Create the Gentoo disk image

1. From the Linode Manager Dashboard, click Create a new Disk Image
2. Give your disk a label (you can change this later) and size (most likely all the remaining disk space on your Linode)
3. Pick Unformatted / raw for the filesystem, we’ll format using ReiserFS later
4. Click Create Disk
5. Edit your Recovery Unbuntu 64bit profile: set /dev/xvdc to the disk image you just created.
6. Click Save Profile

3. Boot the recovery profile

1. From the Linode Manager Dashboard, boot your recovery profile
2. Log in with your favorite ssh client: root@<linode vps IP> and the root password you set up in section 1
3. Install some tools required in later steps:
   root@li # apt-get update
   root@li # apt-get install reiserfsprogs wget

4. Set up Gentoo

This section roughly follows the Gentoo Quick Install Guide.

1. Create the ReiserFS filesystem:
   root@li # mkreiserfs /dev/xvdc
2. Mount the filesystem:
   root@li # mkdir -p /mnt/gentoo
   root@li # mount /dev/xvdc /mnt/gentoo
   root@li # cd /mnt/gentoo
3. Set up the stage:
   root@li # wget http://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/amd64/2008.0/stages/stage3-amd64-2008.0.tar.bz2
   root@li # tar xjpf stage3*
   root@li # rm stage3*
4. Install latest portage snapshot:
   root@li # cd /mnt/gentoo/usr
   root@li # wget http://gentoo.osuosl.org/snapshots/portage-latest.tar.bz2
   root@li # tar xjf portage-lat*
   root@li # rm portage-lat*
5. Chroot into the new Gentoo environment:
   root@li # cd /
   root@li # mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
   root@li # mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
   root@li # cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
   root@li # chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
   li50-172 / # env-update && source /etc/profile
6. Set your timezone:
   li50-172 / # ls /usr/share/zoneinfo
   (Using US/Central as an example)
   li50-172 / # cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
   li50-172 / # nano -w /etc/conf.d/clock
   (Change value of TIMEZONE variable, e.g. TIMEZONE=”US/Central”)
   li50-172 / # date
   Mon Feb 9 14:41:50 CST 2009
7. Set host and domain name
   li50-172 / # cd /etc
   li50-172 etc # echo “127.0.0.1 mybox.at.myplace mybox localhost” > hosts
   li50-172 etc # sed -i -e ‘s/HOSTNAME.*/HOSTNAME=”mybox”/’ conf.d/hostname
   li50-172 etc # hostname mybox
   li50-172 etc # hostname -f
   mybox.at.myplace
8. Configure fstab mount points
   li50-172 etc # nano -w fstab

   Edit the fstab file similar to:

   /dev/xvda     /       reiserfs     noatime,notail  0 1
   /dev/xvdb     none    swap         sw              0 0
   

9. Edit /etc/inittab.
   To ensure the lish console works if you ever need it, edit the terminals section of /etc/inittab to look like:

   # TERMINALS
   c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 hvc0 linux
   #c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
   #c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
   #c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
   #c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
   #c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux
   

10. Configure networking and SSH:
    li50-172 etc # rc-update add net.eth0 default
    * net.eth0 added to runlevel default
    li50-172 etc # rc-update add sshd default
    * sshd added to runlevel default
    li50-172 etc # passwd
    New UNIX password: type_the_password
    Retype new UNIX password: type_the_password_again
    passwd: password updated successfully
11. Install system tools:
    li50-172 etc # emerge logrotate syslog-ng vixie-cron reiserfsprogs dhcpcd
    li50-172 etc # rc-update add syslog-ng default
    * syslog-ng added to runlevel default
    li50-172 etc # rc-update add vixie-cron default
    * vixie-cron added to runlevel default
12. Prepare to reboot:
    li50-172 etc # exit
    root@li # umount /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo/dev/ /mnt/gentoo
    root@li # exit

5. Set up Gentoo profile

1. From the Linode Manager, shutdown the recovery Linode.
2. Create a new profile by clicking Create a new Configuration Profile
3. Set the following options:
   • Label: Gentoo 2008.0 amd64
   • Kernel: a 64-bit kernel, e.g. 2.6.27.4-x86_64-linode3
   • Drive: /dev/xvda: The disk image you set up in section 2 (not the small Ubuntu recovery disk)
   • Drive: /dev/xvdb: Swap Image

6. Boot Gentoo and finish installation

1. From the Linode Manager, click the Boot button for your new Gentoo profile
2. Log in via ssh: root@<Linode VPS IP>
   (You may have to delete the old ssh key out of your known_hosts file on your local machine)
3. Add a non-root user, install sudo and disable root logins via SSH:
   mybox ~ # useradd -m -G wheel username
   mybox ~ # passwd username
   New UNIX password: type_the_password
   Retype new UNIX password: type_the_password_again
   passwd: password updated successfully
   mybox ~ # nano -w /etc/ssh/sshd_config
   (Add a line: PermitRootLogin: no)
   mybox ~ # emerge sudo
   mybox ~ # visudo
   (Uncomment the line: “%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL“, around line 24)
   mybox ~ # /etc/init.d/sshd restart
4. Install a simple conservative firewall:
   mybox ~ # emerge iptables
   mybox ~ # iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 22 -j ACCEPT
   mybox ~ # iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp –icmp-type 8 -j ACCEPT
   mybox ~ # iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
   mybox ~ # iptables -A INPUT -m state –state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
   mybox ~ # iptables -P FORWARD DROP
   mybox ~ # iptables -P INPUT DROP
   mybox ~ # /etc/init.d/iptables save
   mybox ~ # /etc/init.d/iptables start
   mybox ~ # rc-update add iptables default
   * iptables added to runlevel default
5. Select a Gentoo mirror and update make.conf:
   mybox ~ # emerge mirrorselect
   mybox ~ # mirrorselect -i -o >> /etc/make.conf
   mybox ~ # mirrorselect -i -r -o >> /etc/make.conf
   mybox ~ # nano -w /etc/make.conf

   Edit the file to include the parts in bold:

   # Typical Linode has 4 processors, make use of them when compiling
   MAKEOPTS="-j5"
   
   CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
   CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"
   CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
   

   At this point you should also run emerge -vpe world and decide what USE variables you want to include in your make.conf file.

6. Define locales:
   mybox ~ # nano -w /etc/locale.gen
   (Uncomment the first two en_US lines)
   mybox ~ # locale-gen
7. Update portage and installed packages:
   mybox ~ # emerge portage
   mybox ~ # emerge -vpuD –newuse world
   mybox ~ # emerge -vUD –newuse world
   (Go grab some lunch, this is going to take a while.)
   mybox ~ # emerge –oneshot libtool
   mybox ~ # emerge gentoolkit
   mybox ~ # revdep-rebuild

7. Reboot and enjoy

At this point I like to reboot the server to ensure that everything comes back up the way I expect it. This isn’t necessary however.

After reboot my server was using just under a GB of data (990264 bytes) and about 60MB of RAM. The server is now ready to install apache, mysql, etc. I’ll be looking at optimizing my memory usage in a later post.

Note: If you found this helpful and are interesting in signing up for Linode, feel free to use my referral code below. I’m only putting this out there if you’d like to use it – you can easily sign up for a Linode VPS without it!
http://www.linode.com/?r=edff465df97bb1e29468836d3700c79a2d24a17e