A Few Linux Networking Tips

Here's a little something for those of us who use Linux (The place I work uses RedHat primarily) on a day to day basis. Lots of shops these days are switching from the more expensive solutions, like those offered by Sun and HP, to cut cost of deployment and maintenance, which opens up a great pathway into the Linux administration field for folks who are eager to learn. I can tell you, after working all angles of the *nix arena for a decade or so, that there's nothing more grating than having to fill out a form and wait for someone to do something you're supposed to be being paid to be good at. I'm not going to sneeze at my paycheck, of course, but I'm worried that, if I work at too many big corporations with big contracts, my mind will atrophy and I'll die a slow miserable death long before my body gives out ;)

In this post, I just wanted to touch on some Linux networking basics. I try to write this blog for users of all skill levels and I think some of my posts assume a lot of pre-knowledge. This isn't a "for dummies" site, by any means (I've never understood how they marketed that series of books so well. I've tried flat-out telling people they're idiots for most of my natural life and it's never ended well ;). That being said, I'm hoping this blog attracts folks with a wealth of experience and is also accessible to those new to the field.

So, today, I'm going to touch on some Linux networking tips at a basic level. As with everything, over time, I'll dive into these subjects in greater detail. But for now, we'll get to the meat of the post. A lot of times, I find, it makes more sense to know what to do and understand it later, rather than the opposite. To that end (This is all pretty much RedHat specific - please don't try this on a Sun box without a healthy ego - the error messages can be blunt ;) here we go:

1. Adding a default router:

You can generally do this one of two different ways:

If the NIC is already configured and UP, all you need to do is use the route command, like so:

host # route add default gw 127.0.0.1 dev eth0

If you want to add a default route permanently, you'll just need to add this line to the existing /etc/sysconfig/network configuration file:

Note that the NETWORKING and HOSTNAME variables should already be in there (If not, assign them values of yes and "whatever your hostname is", respectively. Also, your network may not be up ;)

GATEWAY=127.0.0.1

Of course, if you prefer, you can always use the /etc/init.d/network script to bounce your NIC's and routes (You set these up in the /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, etc, scripts). You can also use the service command to bring up your network, bring it down or restart it (which will, again, re-read your configuration).

2. Displaying your NIC's device driver settings:

This is most commonly done with a command called ethtool. To get your NIC's settings you could do the following:

host # ethtool -i eth0
driver: tg3
version: 3.10u6
firmware-version:
bus-info: 05:01.0

You can then use this info to help with problem solving. For instance, if eth0 isn't coming up correctly, perhaps eth0 doesn't have a proper alias setup in /etc/modules.conf, like:

alias eth0 tg3 <--- This line tells us that eth0 is actually an alias referring to the tg3 device driver.

If you look in there and it's:

alias eth0 e1000

you've found the problem right there!)

3. Display your NIC's Speed, Duplex and Negotiation settings (also with ethtool):

This one is just as simple as the command above (ethtool is much nicer than using old-style ifconfig, netstat and/or kstat - although they all have their virtues and are necessary depending on how old your Linux distro is)

host # ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Cannot get device settings: Resource temporarily unavailable
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x000000ff (255)
Link detected: no

Looks like the link's not up for that one! It's just as easy to spot if all's well (You can sometimes tell from a good distance away ;):

host # ethtool eth1
Settings for eth1:
Supported ports: [ FIBRE ]
Supported link modes: 1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: Twisted Pair
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x000000ff (255)

4. Now to configure, or initialize, those settings, we'll use ethtool as well:

Assuming we found out that the device associated with eth0 didn't have the cable connected, and we've got that all set up (along with correcting the alias in /etc/modules.conf, if that was wrong), we could fix it all by doing something like this:

ethtool -s eth0 speed 1000 duplex full autoneg off

You can add as many option/value pairs as you need (e.g. speed 1000) to get the job done. Don't forget to update the /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, etc, files with your settings. If you don't, you'll have to do this every time the machine reboots!

Hope this has helped you out some or, at least, helped you get started taking on the Linux world :)

Cheers,

, Mike

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