Chapter 18. Network Configuration
To communicate with other computers, computers must have a network
connection. This is accomplished by having the operating system recognize
an interface card (such as Ethernet, ISDN modem, or token ring) and
configuring the interface to connect to the network.
The Network Administration Tool can be
used to configure the following types of network interfaces:
Ethernet
ISDN
modem
xDSL
token ring
CIPE
wireless devices
It can also be used to configure IPsec connections, manage DNS settings,
and manage the /etc/hosts file used to store
additional hostnames and IP address combinations.
To use the Network Administration Tool, you must have root
privileges. To start the application, go to the (on the Panel) => =>
, or type the command
system-config-network at a shell prompt (for example,
in an XTerm or a GNOME
terminal). If you type the command, the graphical version is
displayed if X is running; otherwise, the text-based version is
displayed.
To use the command line version, execute the command
system-config-network-cmd --help as root to view all
of the options.
If you prefer modifying the configuration files directly, refer to the
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reference Guide for information on their locations and
contents.
To configure a network connection with the
Network Administration Tool, perform the following steps:
Add a network device associated with the physical hardware
device.
Add the physical hardware device to the hardware list, if it does
not already exist.
Configure the hostname and DNS settings.
Configure any hosts that cannot be looked up through DNS.
This chapter discusses each of these steps for each type of network
connection.
