cyborgworkshop.org

This has got to be one of the most disappointing bugs I have ever seen. Ubuntu 8.10 was shipped with the inability to be configured with a static IP address. As soon as you reboot, the configuration goes back to DHCP! This really blows my mind and has me thinking hard about picking a new distribution.  In the meantime, you can work around this monumental snafu by following these directions.

vi the /etc/network/interfaces file.

sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces

delete anything talking about eth0 and in this in it’s place.

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Your IP)
netmask xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Your netmask)
gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (Your default router or gateway)

Now edit /etc/resolv.conf

sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

And add the following

nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (The IP of your DNS server)
search abc.def.com (your domain, ala cyborgworkshop.org)

This is the last part. we have to get rid of the network manager that runs at boot and is the cause of all of this embarrassment, so run the following.

sudo update-rc.d –f NetworkManager remove

Reboot and you should be good to go.

By default, solaris will only let you add 255 IP addresses to an interface. You’ll know you hit the limit when you get an out of buffer message when you try to add your next one. In Solaris 2.5, you’re pretty much stuck with this limitation. In solaris 2.6 and higher, you can run the followng to up that limit as high as 8192. Past 8192, you’ll need to add another interface.

/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_addrs_per_if 8192

When you need to get ip address information from a windows machine, the quickest way is to use the ipconfig command from a command prompt. Go to start, then run and type

cmd

then run

ipconfig /all

will give you most of the information you’ll need to figure out how the network stack is configured on a windows machine including the hostname, IP, dns servers, netmask, etc.

Sometimes you just need to change a handful of system settings on a machine and have no interest in starting over. A good example might be moving a web server to a new network where it has a new hostname. The box is just fine, but the IP and the hostname will need to change for it to function on the new network. For those situations, Solaris has a tool called sysunconfig that will walk you through the initial setup of your solaris machine. You’ll be able to change the hostname, IP, timezone, etc. As root run

sys-unconfig

Note that this will require a reboot when you’re done, so think ahead.