Today, I will cover the initial installation of the CentOS Linux distribution version 6.9, using the ‘minimal’ image, which comes with the bare essentials of the system. I will complete the installation on VMware ESXi hypervisor but feel free to use any other hypervisor. Additional components can be installed after installation, which in my view is more interesting because you will install the essential packages for your needs, making the system lighter. CentOS uses source code from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The download link for the ‘minimal’ ISO can be found here.
NOTE: I will not display the details of how to install VMware ESXi. The installation is very similar on other hypervisors, including Virtualbox.
The first step to start the installation is to boot the CentOS image using the ISO file. To do this, I will upload the ISO to VMware ESXi.
Select Storage and click “Datastore browse”.
As best practice, create a directory that will contain all your further iso images. Click “Create directory“.
Enter the name “images_iso” and click “Create Directory”
Select the “images_iso” folder
Click Upload and select the ISO file downloaded before.
The CentOS image is ready to be installed.
Click “Virtual Machines” and “Create / Register VM“.
Select “Create a new virtual machine” and click Next.
Enter the name “CentOS 6.9” and fill in the other fields as below. Click Next.
Select your Datastore and click Next.
Change your Hard Disk size to 20GB and under “CD/DVD Drive 1”, select “Datastore ISO file”.
Select your CentOS 6.9 image and click Select.
Click Next and Finish.
Your VM is ready.
Select the CentOS VM and click “Power on“.
On the screen below, select “Install CentOS 6.9“.
As this is a new virtual disk, click Skip.
Click Next.
Next, choose the language of your preference. In my case, I selected English.
Keep “Basic Storage Devices” selected and click Next
Select “Yes, discard any data”.
Enter your hostname and click Next.
NOTE: If you do not have a DHCP server and need to statically set your IP Address, select “Configure Network” and set it before clicking Next.
Select your time zone and click Next.
Select “Use All Space” and click Next.
Click “Write changes to disk“.
The installation will start and last for a few minutes.
The installation is done. Click Reboot.
There you go, your CentOS Linux distribution has been successfully installed. To log in, use the ‘root’ user and the password defined during installation.
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