Configure multiple ethernet interfaces

[Bob Shaffer]

Demyanovich, Craig - Apogent said:
> Greetings,
>
> I can't recreate the configuration of network interfaces after a FC1
> install.  eth0 (built-in) has been identified and configured correctly.
> However, eth1 (built-in) and eth2-5 (a 4-port card) are a mess.  Kudzu
> doesn't detect everything properly at boot time.  Furthermore, despite
> deleting all devices (via the GUI config tool), /etc/sysconfig/hwconf
> still
> lists eth4 and eth5.  Yet, /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts lists only eth0
> and lo (good), and /etc/modules.conf lists only eth0 (good).  What gives?
>
> What I want to be able to do is to keep the config for eth0 and start
> fresh
> with eth1-5.  For example, first I'd configure eth1 and test.  Then, I'd
> try
> to configure the 4-port card (eth2-5).  Still very new to linux
> administration, I've been struggling to find a good resource on how to
> accomplish my goal.  I would greatly appreciate any pointers on the proper
> way to tell FC1 exactly what I want the details (card, driver, assigned to
> ethX, etc.) of the remaining interfaces to be.
>
(snip)

You're pretty much stuck with whatever number it gives your interfaces.  I
think it mostly depends on which slot they are actually in.

I'm not familiar with the GUI interface, but your drivers are controlled
by the aliases in /etc/modules.conf and you can just enter whatever you
want in there.  The other parameters are contained in the files
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* and you can probably copy the
eth0 file and edit it to suit your needs for the other interfaces.  It
sounds like you want to only start eth0 on boot, so you may want to use
something like this for your ifcfg-eth* files above eth0:

DEVICE=eth1
ONBOOT=no

Other variables that you can define there are:
BOOTPROTO=[bootp|dhcp|static]

if you use 'static', these are useful:

IPADDR=10.11.12.13         # IP for interface
NETMASK=255.255.252.0      # Netmask for interface/network
BROADCAST=10.11.15.255     # Broadcast address for interface/network
GATEWAY=10.11.15.254       # default gateway for interface (if any)

I don't see a man page for these scripts anywhere.  You could print out
the /sbin/ifup script for reference if you can read shell scripts.