HowTo Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Configure The Network Card

To configure the network card on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 system, you can follow these steps:

1. Edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX file: Open the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX file in a text editor, where X is the number of the network interface you want to configure. For example, to configure the eth0 interface, you would edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file.

2. Configure the network settings: In the ifcfg-ethX file, you can specify the following settings:

• DEVICE: The name of the network interface.
• BOOTPROTO: The method of obtaining an IP address. Valid values are dhcp or static.
• ONBOOT: Whether the interface should be activated at boot time. Valid values are yes or no.
• IPADDR: The static IP address of the interface. This is required if BOOTPROTO is set to static.
• NETMASK: The network mask of the interface. This is required if BOOTPROTO is set to static.
• GATEWAY: The default gateway for the interface. This is required if BOOTPROTO is set to static.

For example, to configure the eth0 interface with a static IP address of 192.168.1.100, a network mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway of 192.168.1.1, you would set the following values in the ifcfg-eth0 file:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=192.168.1.100
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

3. Save the file and apply the changes: Save the changes to the ifcfg-ethX file and exit the text editor. Then, restart the network service by running the following command:

service network restart

This will apply the new network settings and activate the network interface.