Linux System Administration

Configuring the Network

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Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent

permitted by applicable law.

Last login: Sun Dec 25 19:07:38 2005 from 70.255.197.162

admin@server1:~$

At this point, you have established a remote connection and can perform tasks as if

you were looking at your system from the monitor of your server. If you wish, you

can remove any monitor, keyboard, and mouse you have connected to your server.

Configuring the Network

If you used DHCP during the Debian installation, you should now configure your

server with a static IP address so you can perform the testing required later in the

chapter. If you had a public IP address and configured it as static, you can skip to the

next section.

If you installed Debian with a DHCP client from your router or Internet service pro-

vider, you need to reconfigure networking. This is a valuable lesson in its own right

for exploring Linux network configuration.

To change the settings to use a static IP address, you’ll need to become root and edit

the file /etc/network/interfaces to suit your needs. As an example, we’ll use the IP

address 70.153.258.42.

Our configuration file starts out looking like this:

# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

# The loopback interface

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

# The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian

# installation

# (network, broadcast, ...