Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
FOR MOST USERS,
coniguring the Pi's network is as easy as plugging a cable into the
Model B's Ethernet port—or a USB Ethernet adapter in the case of the Model A. For others,
however, the network requires manual coniguration.
If you know that your network doesn't have a
Dynamic Host Coniguration Protocol (DHCP)
server—a system that tells the Pi and other devices on the network how they should con-
nect—or if you want to use a USB wireless adapter with the Pi, read on.
Wired Networking
If the network still doesn't work, you may need to conigure it manually. Normally, the net-
work in a home, school or oice has a DHCP server that tells the Pi and other devices on the
network how they should connect. Some networks, however, don't have a DHCP server and
need to be set up manually.
he list of network interfaces, along with information about how they should be conigured,
is stored in a ile called
interfaces
located in the folder
/etc/network
. his is a ile only
the
root
user can edit, because removing a network interface from this list will cause it to stop
working.
From the terminal, you can edit this ile using a variety of diferent text editors. For simplic-
ity, the
nano
text editor should be used for this process. Open the ile for editing with the
following command:
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
Nano
is a powerful yet lightweight text editor, with a simple user interface (see Figure 4-1).
You can move your cursor around the document with the arrow keys, save by holding down
the CTRL key and pressing O, and quit by holding down the CTRL key and pressing X.
he line you need to edit for manual coniguration starts with
iface eth0 inet
. Delete
dhcp
from the end of this line and replace it with
static
, press Enter to start a new line, and
then ill in the remaining details in the following format with a tab at the start of each line:
[Tab]
address
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
[Tab]
netmask
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
[Tab]
gateway
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Make sure that you press the Tab key at the start of each line, and don't actually type
[Tab]
.
he
x
characters in the coniguration lines represent network addresses you'll need to enter.
For
address
, you should enter the static IP address that you want to assign to the Pi. For
