Post-installation setup script for CentOS 7 servers

(c) Niki Kovacs 2019

This repository provides an "automagic" post-installation setup script for servers running CentOS 7.

Quick & Dirty

Perform the following steps.

1. Install a minimal CentOS 7 system.

2. Create a non-root user with administrator privileges.

3. Install Git: sudo yum install git

4. Grab the script: git clone https://github.com/kikinovak/centos-setup

5. Change into the new directory: cd centos-setup

6. Run the script: sudo ./centos-7-setup.sh --setup

7. Grab a cup of coffee while the script does all the work.

8. Reboot.

Customizing a CentOS server

Turning a minimal CentOS installation into a functional server always boils down to a series of more or less time-consuming operations. Your mileage may vary of course, but here's what I usually do on a fresh CentOS installation:

• Customize the Bash shell: prompt, aliases, etc.

• Customize the Vim editor.

• Setup official and third-party repositories.

• Install a complete set of command line tools.

• Remove a handful of unneeded packages.

• Enable the admin user to access system logs.

• Disable IPv6 and reconfigure some services accordingly.

• Configure a persistent password for sudo.

• Etc.

The centos-7-setup.sh script performs all of these operations.

Configure Bash and Vim and set a more readable default console resolution:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --shell

Setup official and third-party repositories:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --repos

Install the Core and Base package groups along with some extra tools:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --extra

Remove a handful of unneeded packages:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --prune

Enable the admin user to access system logs:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --logs

Disable IPv6 and reconfigure basic services accordingly:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --ipv4

Configure password persistence for sudo:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --sudo

Perform all of the above in one go:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --setup

Enable packet forwarding:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --nat

Strip packages and revert back to an enhanced base system:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --strip

Display help message:

# ./centos-7-setup.sh --help

If you want to know what exactly goes on under the hood, open a second terminal and view the logs:

$ tail -f /tmp/centos-7-setup.log