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DevTut

Network Configuration

Interface details

Section titled “Interface details”

Ifconfig

List all the interfaces available on the machine

$ ifconfig -a

List the details of a specific interface

Syntax: $ ifconfig <interface>

Example:

Terminal window
$ ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
          inet addr:x.x.x.x  Bcast:x.x.x.x  Mask:x.x.x.x
          inet6 addr: xxxx::xxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4426618 errors:0 dropped:1124 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:189171 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:382611580 (382.6 MB)  TX bytes:36923665 (36.9 MB)
          Interrupt:16 Memory:fb5e0000-fb600000

Ethtool - query the network driver and hardware settings

Syntax: $ ethtool <interface>

Example:

Terminal window
$ ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
    Supported ports: [ TP ]
    Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                            100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                            1000baseT/Full
    Supported pause frame use: No
    Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
    Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                            100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                            1000baseT/Full
    Advertised pause frame use: No
    Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
    Speed: 1000Mb/s
    Duplex: Full
    Port: Twisted Pair
    PHYAD: 1
    Transceiver: internal
    Auto-negotiation: on
    MDI-X: on (auto)
    Supports Wake-on: pumbg
    Wake-on: g
    Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
                   drv probe link
    Link detected: yes

ip - show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels

Syntax: $ ip { link | ... | route | macsec } (please see man ip for full list of objects)

Examples

List network interfaces

Terminal window
$ ip link show

Rename interface eth0 to wan

Terminal window
$ ip link set dev eth0 name wan

Bring interface eth0 up (or down)

Terminal window
$ ip link set dev eth0 up

List addresses for interfaces

Terminal window
$ ip addr show

Add (or del) ip and mask (255.255.255.0)

Terminal window
$ ip addr add 1.2.3.4/24 brd + dev eth0

Adding IP to an interface

Section titled “Adding IP to an interface”

An IP address to an interface could be obtained via DHCP or Static assignment

DHCP If you are connected to a network with a DHCP server running, dhclient command can get an IP address for your interface

$ dhclient <interface>

or alternatively, you could make a change to the /etc/network/interfaces file for the interface to be brought up on boot and obtain DHCP IP

Terminal window
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Static configuration(Permanent Change) using /etc/network/interfaces file

If you want to statically configure the interface settings(permanent change), you could do so in the /etc/network/interfaces file.

Example:

Terminal window
auto eth0 # Bring up the interface on boot
iface eth0 inet static
    address 10.10.70.10
    netmask 255.255.0.0
    gateway 10.10.1.1
    dns-nameservers 10.10.1.20
    dns-nameservers 10.10.1.30

These changes persist even after system reboot.

Static configuration(Temporary change) using ifconfig utility

A static IP address could be added to an interface using the ifconfig utility as follows

$ ifconfig <interface> <ip-address>/<mask> up

Example:

$ ifconfig eth0 10.10.50.100/16 up

Local DNS resolution

Section titled “Local DNS resolution”

File: /etc/hosts contains a list of hosts that are to be resolved locally(not by DNS)

Sample contents of the file:

Terminal window
127.0.0.1         your-node-name.your-domain.com  localhost.localdomain  localhost
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX   node-name

The file format for the hosts file is specified by RFC 952

Configure DNS servers for domain name resolution

Section titled “Configure DNS servers for domain name resolution”

File: /etc/resolv.conf contains a list of DNS servers for domain name resolution

Sample contents of the file:

Terminal window
nameserver 8.8.8.8 # IP address of the primary name server
nameserver 8.8.4.4 # IP address of the secondary name server

In case internal DNS server you can validate if this server resolve DNS names properly using dig command:

Terminal window
$ dig google.com @your.dns.server.com +short

See and manipulate routes

Section titled “See and manipulate routes”

Manipulate the IP routing table using route

Section titled “Manipulate the IP routing table using route”

Display routing table

Terminal window
$ route # Displays list or routes and also resolves host names
$ route -n # Displays list of routes without resolving host names for faster results

Add/Delete route

|Option|Description |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|--- |add or del|Add or delete a route |-host x.x.x.x|Add route to a single host identified by the IP address |-net x.x.x.x|Add route to a network identified by the network address |gw x.x.x.x|Specify the network gateway |netmask x.x.x.x|Specify the network netmask |default|Add a default route

Examples:

  • add route to a host $ route add -host x.x.x.x eth1
  • add route to a network $ route add -net 2.2.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 eth0
  • Alternatively, you could also use cidr format to add a route to network route add -net 2.2.2.0/24 eth0
  • add default gateway $ route add default gw 2.2.2.1 eth0
  • delete a route $ route del -net 2.2.2.0/24

Manipulate the IP routing table using ip

Section titled “Manipulate the IP routing table using ip”

Display routing table

Terminal window
$ ip route show # List routing table

Add/Delete route

|Option|Description |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|--- |add or del or change or append or replace|Change a route |show or flush|the command displays the contents of the routing tables or remove it |restore|restore routing table information from stdin |get|this command gets a single route to a destination and prints its contents exactly as the kernel sees it

Examples:

  • Set default gateway to 1.2.3.254 $ ip route add default via 1.2.3.254
  • Adds a default route (for all addresses) via the local gateway 192.168.1.1 that can be reached on device eth0 $ ip route add default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0

Configure a hostname for some other system on your network

Section titled “Configure a hostname for some other system on your network”

You can configure your Linux (or macOS) system in order to tie in an identifier <hostname> to some other system’s IP address in your network. You can configure it:

  • Systemwide. You should modify the **/etc/hosts** file. You just have to add to that file a new line containing:
      - the remote system's IP address ``, - one or more blank spaces, and - the identifier ``.
  • For a single user. You should modify the **~/.hosts** file --- you-d have to create it. It is not as simple as for systemwide. [Here](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/10438/can-i-create-a-user-specific-hosts-file-to-complement-etc-hosts) you can see an explanation.

    • For instance, you could add this line using the cat Unix tool. Suppose that you want to make a ping to a PC in yout local network whose IP address is 192.168.1.44 and you want to refer to that IP address just by remote_pc. Then you must write on your shell:

    Terminal window
    $ sudo cat 192.168.1.44 remote_pc

    Then you can make that ping just by:

    Terminal window
    $ ping remote_pc