No Znx!

Sometimes when people are using Linux they will find that they come across a simple security check that confirms the authenticity of the RPM/Deb files that they are installing. Every so often the key is missing but that is easy to remedy. Here I will use an example with the YUM install of Adobe Flash:

[root@marine]# ls
adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
[root@marine]# yum localinstall adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, priorities
Setting up Local Package Process
Examining adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm: adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch
Marking adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm to be installed
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* addons: anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk
* base: anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk
* centosplus: anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk
* contrib: anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk
* extras: anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk
* rpmforge: fr2.rpmfind.net
* updates: anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk
588 packages excluded due to repository priority protections
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package adobe-release-i386.noarch 0:1.0-1 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
Package              Arch     Version Repository                          Size
================================================================================
Installing:
adobe-release-i386   noarch   1.0-1   /adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch   1.9 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install      1 Package(s)
Update       0 Package(s)
Remove       0 Package(s)

Total size: 1.9 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID f6777c67

Public key for adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm is not installed

As you can see it attempted to install but because the key was missing it refused to install. So what do we do to find that key? First we must download the key from somewhere, there is various key servers around the world, some of the most popular are (note hkp is the HTTP keyserver protocol):

• hkp://subkeys.pgp.net
• hkp://pgp.mit.edu
• hkp://keys.gnupg.net
• hkp://wwwkeys.uk.pgp.net (where UK can be replaced by any country code)

So lets search for the missing key:

[root@marine]# gpg --keyserver hkp://wwwkeys.uk.pgp.net --recv-keys f6777c67
gpg: requesting key F6777C67 from hkp server wwwkeys.uk.pgp.net
gpg: /root/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key F6777C67: public key "Adobe Systems Incorporated (Linux RPM
  Signing Key) " imported
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

So now we have the key and see that it is indeed Adobe’s key. Now all we need to do is add into RPM:

[root@marine]# gpg --armor --export f6777c67 >tmp-gpg.key
[root@marine]# rpm --import tmp-gpg.key

Simple as that, the install will work now!

This post is a refreshed look at a previous post on the same matter.

I recently reinstalled my CentOS (to upgrade to 5.3) and this time I decided to use a netinstall method. The netinstall can be very useful if you have a local repository of RPM files and even then it can be nice to download a very small ISO (only 8.3Mb).

So here is how you can do it for yourself. If you require to setup any partitioning scheme before hand, I highly recommend Partition Logic as a good run-from-CD partitioning tool. You will also need to download the small CentOS NetInstall ISO.

• Boot from the ISO
• Type linux askmethod at the boot prompt
• Select the required network setup. Normally DHCP is good enough, disable IPv6 unless you plan on using it.
• Select HTTP as the installation method.
• If you have a local web server with your RPM’s on it then put in the information there. Otherwise use: mirror.centos.org and centos/5.3/os/i386.
• Finally start the installation process.

The whole thing should take no more than a couple of hours to complete. This method allows you to quickly start an installation of CentOS without the need to download all 6 of the CD’s or the DVD image.

So I recently showed you how easy it was to install VMware under Redhat. Now lets look at how easy it is to install Windows XP as a guest OS.

First you will need to get a hold of your Windows XP CD ready for the installation, put it into the CD-Rom.

Open up the VMware console and select File > New > Virtual Machine. This will open us the Wizard that will walk us through the installation. Click Next and then select Typical and again click Next. Select Windows XP from the list of operating systems available, you can normally leave the location as its default but remember that you need at least 8Gb (the default) per guest OS that you are installing. I normally choose a bridged network setup, with most network layouts now there is a DHCP server and its easy to add another IP to your network. You can however set it to share its IP with the host system. As you go through the next steps, selecting the defaults is normally good enough. You can tweak if you wish but I am happy to settle for the defaults. 

Once all that is complete it will make 8Gb of space available for your install. At this point you can start the guest system and it will then boot from the Windows CD. Continue as normal through the Windows install and you should wind up with a Windows XP installation.

Once it is all up and running I do highly suggest that you install VMware Tools, available by doing VM > VMware Tools. The installer should then pop up and start. You should see the VMware icon in the lower corner by the clock.

Poke around and have fun. All the other OS installs are carried out in much the same manner.

That’s it, a working XP guest installation!

Installing VMware server is really an easy process but I thought I’d doodle it here to help new users.

First you want to ensure that your kernel and kernel-dev packages match one another in version. Running these will check that out:

$ uname -r
2.6.18-92.1.10.el5
$ rpm -q kernel-devel
kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5

If you find that your versions do not match then you should upgrade both packages like this:

# yum -y upgrade kernel kernel-devel

After which you should reboot into the newly installed kernel.

Now you are ready to download the latest VMware Server. You should download the RPM and register for a serial number on that link. Install the RPM like this:

# rpm -ivh VMware-server-1.0.6-91891.i386.rpm

VMware requires some programs and libraries to be installed, so run this command to make sure they are there:

# yum install libXtst-devel libXrender-devel xinetd

If that is all successful then you can continue and configure VMware.

# vmware-config.pl

This script will prompt you for some questions and setup VMware for you. Once complete you can start the VMware Server Console from a link in your menus.

That’s it for now, I will detail how to setup a Windows XP install soon.