Raspberry Pi User Guide

Chapter 4: Network Configuration

For most users, configuring the Pi’s network is as easy as plugging a cable into the Model B’s Ethernet port—or a USB Ethernet adapter in the case of the Model A. For others, however, the network requires manual configuration.

If you know that your network doesn’t have a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server—a system that tells the Pi and other devices on the network how they should connect—or if you want to use a USB wireless adapter with the Pi, read on.

Wired Networking

If the network still doesn’t work, you may need to configure it manually. Normally, the network in a home, school or office has a DHCP server that tells the Pi and other devices on the network how they should connect. Some networks, however, don’t have a DHCP server and need to be set up manually.

The list of network interfaces, along with information about how they should be configured, is stored in a file called interfaces located in the folder /etc/network. This is a file only the root user can edit, because removing a network interface from this list will cause it to stop working.

From the terminal, you can edit this file using a variety of different text editors. For simplicity, the nano text editor should be used for this process. Open the file for editing with the following command:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Nano is a powerful yet lightweight text editor, with a simple user interface (see Figure 4-1). You can move your cursor around the document with ...