5.7.2. Ethernet Interfaces
Configuring an Ethernet interface is pretty much the same as the loopback interface; it just requires a few more parameters when you are using subnetting.
At the Virtual Brewery, we have subnetted the IP network, which was originally a class B network, into class C subnetworks. To make the interface recognize this, the ifconfig incantation would look like this:
# ifconfig eth0 vstout netmask 255.255.255.0
This command assigns the eth0 interface the IP address of vstout (172.16.1.2 ). If we omitted the netmask, ifconfig would deduce the netmask from the IP network class, which would result in an incorrect netmask of 255.255.0.0 . Now a quick check shows:
# ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap 10Mps Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:C0:90:B3:42
inet addr 172.16.1.2 Bcast 172.16.1.255 Mask 255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MTU 1500 Metric 1
RX packets 0 errors 0 dropped 0 overrun 0
TX packets 0 errors 0 dropped 0 overrun 0
You can see that ifconfig automatically sets the broadcast address (the Bcast field) to the usual value, which is the host's network number with all the host bits set. Also, the maximum transmission unit (the maximum size of IP datagrams the kernel will generate for this interface) has been set to the maximum size of Ethernet packets: 1,500 bytes. The defaults are usually what you will use, but all these values can be overidden if required, with special options that will be described under Section 5.8 ".
Just as for the loopback interface, you now have to install a routing entry that informs the kernel about the network that can be reached through eth0 . For the Virtual Brewery, you might invoke route as:
# route add -net 172.16.1.0
At first this looks a little like magic, because it's not really clear how route detects which interface to route through. However, the trick is rather simple: the kernel checks all interfaces that have been configured so far and compares the destination address (172.16.1.0 in this case) to the network part of the interface address (that is, the bitwise AND of the interface address and the netmask). The only interface that matches is eth0 .
Now, what's that –net option for? This is used because route can handle both routes to networks and routes to single hosts (as you saw before with localhost ). When given an address in dotted quad notation, route attempts to guess whether it is a network or a hostname by looking at the host part bits. If the address's host part is zero, route assumes it denotes a network; otherwise, route takes it as a host address. Therefore, route would think that 172.16.1.0 is a host address rather than a network number, because it cannot know that we use subnetting. We have to tell route explicitly that it denotes a network, so we give it the –net flag.
Of course, the route command is a little tedious to type, and it's prone to spelling mistakes. A more convenient approach is to use the network names we defined in /etc/networks . This approach makes the command much more readable; even the –net flag can be omitted because route knows that 172.16.1.0 denotes a network:
# route add brew-net
Now that you've finished the basic configuration steps, we want to make sure that your Ethernet interface is indeed running happily. Choose a host from your Ethernet, for instance vlager , and type:
# ping vlager
PING vlager: 64 byte packets
64 bytes from 172.16.1.1: icmp_seq=0. time=11. ms
64 bytes from 172.16.1.1: icmp_seq=1. time=7. ms
64 bytes from 172.16.1.1: icmp_seq=2. time=12. ms
64 bytes from 172.16.1.1: icmp_seq=3. time=3. ms
^C
----vstout.vbrew.com PING Statistics----
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets
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