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;; Query time: 33 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.100#53(192.168.1.100)
;; WHEN: Mon Aug 10 18:32:20 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 196
Table-7. DNS query examples.
Having replies in the answer sections means that DNS information is functioning properly. If not however then these tools can be used
to perform diagnostics on the system.
3.4 Upgrading system components:
Now that the network connectivity is up and fully functional we need to start upgrading the system components like packages and
kernel in order for enhanced security and hardware support. For this we really only need to run two basic commands using the
Aptitude package manager, which will resolve any dependency or package conflict issues automatically.
Apt-get update will update the apt cache with the latest packages and kernels, and apt-get upgrade will upgrade those packages. Before
upgrading the kernel to the latest version let's upgrade the packages first. Once all done we can reboot the system using: init 6 from
the terminal.
Once booted back into the system we can now run: apt-get update again to see if there are any other packages that have just been
released which depend on previous packages being updated. To update the kernel to the latest one we run: apt-get dist-upgrade which
will give us the latest kernel, however the system won't utilize this kernel version straight away as it needs to be rebooted. Before
issuing the init 6 command we need to edit the GRUB boot loader menu in order to show us the different kernel versions just in case
we run into problems. Running: nano /boot/grub/menu.lst we can edit the file to exclude this statement:
[...]
## hiddenmenu
# Hides the menu by default (press ESC to see the menu)
#hiddenmenu {placing a # here comments out this statement in order to view the different boot options}
[...]
Table-8. GRUB menu configuration for new kernels.
Many other GRUB customizations can be done via this file such as adding a Splash screen or multi-booting the system.
An example of a few customizations can be seen below:
Img-3. GRUB boot loader example.
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