Linux All-In-One For Dummies, 7th Edition

Chapter 4

Managing the Network

IN THIS CHAPTER

Exploring the TCP/IP configuration files

Doing some basic troubleshooting

Using the command line to troubleshoot network issues

These days, it’s almost a necessity to have your Linux system connected to some type of network. Whether it’s because of the need to share files and printers on a local network or the need to connect to the Internet to download updates and security patches, most Linux systems have some type of network connection. This chapter looks at how to configure your Linux system to connect to a network, as well as how to troubleshoot network connections if things go wrong.

Configuring Network Features

There are five main pieces of information you need to configure in your Linux system to interact on a network:

• The host address
• The network subnet address
• The default router (sometimes called the gateway)
• The system hostname
• A Domain Name System (DNS) server address for resolving hostnames

That’s a lot of information to handle, and to top it off, there are three different ways to configure this information in Linux systems:

• Manually editing network configuration files
• Using a graphical tool included with your Linux ...