On Sun, 2008-09-21 at 21:53 -0700, Paul Newell wrote:
I am really glad you added the note about what the heck that "::1"
item is, I didn't put the "6" together with IPv6. I am going to
disable IPv6 until I get this sorted out so I have closer symmetry
with the original.
I disable IPv6, and leave it that way. Though there are a few IPv6
services in the wild, my ISP (supposedly) doesn't support IPv6 yet, and
my modem definitely doesn't.
I do not have a server, just three Linux boxes. Connectivity is
handled through Linksys.
Linksys is a brand, I had to go back through the thread to find out what
particular device you're referring to, Linksys WRT54GL, a wireless
router and wired network switch, which makes use of an external modem
(or not, if you connect to your ISP without needing any modem). In
essence, this is your server.
Generally, *it* will be the gateway to the internet for your other PCs,
it may also be the DNS server for them (many of these devices will act
as a local DNS server, so you don't have to configure each PC with the
ISP's DNS server address - useful, so you don't have to reconfigure them
all should the ISP change their server address).
They can also be a DHCP server, that will configure the network
addresses of any device attached to your LAN, automatically. But often
these all-in-one devices don't tie their DHCP server to their DNS
server, so your local machine names aren't entered into their DNS
server. This can be a problem with things that need names and IPs fixed
together (such as mail servers, and SSH), in which case it can be easier
to turn off its DHCP server, and set things up statically on each PC. I
can't see anything on the Linksys website that suggests it enters DHCP
assigned addresses into its DNS server.
In my opinion, you're better off with a fully integrated DNS and DHCP
server combination, *or* to completely ignore DHCP and use static
addresses. Trying a half-arsed approach just makes things painful.
It does sound like you are suggesting to do the default setting for
the install and change later (??? --- yes, this is a question)
Yes, do whatever's needed for the install (or ignore that step, if you
don't need networking during the install), then reconfigure
post-install, if needed.
If I may ask, would you suggest directly editing ifcfg-eth0 as I think
Joel is suggesting?
It shouldn't be necessary, and if you still have automatic configuring
programmes running on the computer, you'll be fighting against them.
Whichever method you use for manual configuration, turn off the
automatic alternatives.
You can use the configuration tools provided by Fedora, they work for
me. There's a "network" administration tool in the Gnome menus, KDE
will have something similar.
On my own network, I have a variety of machines, and do not want to have
to hand-edit hosts files all over the place. I have a DNS and DHCP
server working together on a Fedora box (which also has mail and web
servers, etc.). The server has a fixed address, all the client PCs use
DHCP to let the server configure them, there's no manual configuring
needed on the clients, other than to tell them what their own hostnames
are. I fix IPs, for things that need them, by configuring the DHCP
server. For things that don't need fixed IPs, the DHCP server has a
range of addresses it'll pick from.
