 | Note |
|---|
| | Most of what can be done with the Control
Panel applications can also be done using
linuxconf.
|
The Control Panel is a launching pad for a
number of different system administration tools (see Figure 15-1). These tools make system
administration easier because you can configure your system without having
to remember configuration file formats and awkward command line options.
To start the Control Panel, type
control-panel at a shell prompt. You will need to be
root to run the Control Panel tools and must be
running the X Window System because it is a graphical utility. You can
do this as well if you already have X running as a normal user. Just type
su -c control-panel and then type the root password
when prompted. If you plan to do other tasks as root, you can type
su - followed by the root password when prompted.
| Note |
|---|
| | If you are not running X as root, you might see the following error
message:
Xlib: connection to "server.domain.net:0.0" refused by server
Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to Server
kmail: cannot connect to X server server.domain.net:0 |
If you see this, you need to give root access to
your system's X server. To do this, enter the following command on a
non-root terminal window:
|
After you have started the Control Panel, click
on an icon to start a tool. Please note that you are not prevented from
starting two instances of any tool, but doing so is a very bad idea
because you may try to edit the same files in two places and end up
overwriting your own changes.
 | Note |
|---|
| | If you do accidentally start a second copy of a tool, you should quit it
immediately. Also, do not manually edit any files managed by the
Control Panel tools while the tools are
running. Similarly, do not run any other programs (such as
linuxconf) that may change those files while
the tools are running.
|
Network Configurator, shown in Figure 15-2, allows you to easily manipulate
parameters such as IP addresses, gateway addresses, and network
addresses, as well as name servers and /etc/hosts.
To start Network Configurator start the
Control Panel and click on the
Network Configurator icon or type
netcfg from a shell prompt.
Network devices can be added, removed, configured, activated,
deactivated and aliased.
Ethernet, ARCnet, Token Ring, pocket (ATP), SLIP, PLIP and loopback
devices are supported. SLIP/PLIP support works well on most hardware,
but some hardware setups may exhibit unpredictable behavior.
When using Network Configurator, click
Save to write your changes to disk. To quit
without making any changes, select Quit.
Network Configurator's
Names panel serves two primary purposes: setting
the hostname and domain of the computer and determining which name
server will be used to look up other hosts on the network. The
Names panel can not configure a machine to be a
name server. To edit a field or add information to a field, simply
click on the field with the left mouse button and type the new
information.
In the Hosts management panel, you can add, edit,
or remove hosts from the /etc/hosts file. Adding
or editing an entry involves identical actions. An edit dialog box
will appear. Simply type the new information and click
Done when you are finished. See Figure 15-3 for an example.
If you have added a network interface to your machine since installing
Red Hat Linux, or if you didn't configure your Ethernet card at install time,
you can configure it here with a few clicks of a mouse.
Begin adding an interface by clicking on the
Interfaces in the main panel. A list of
configured devices and a row of available options will be displayed;
see Figure 15-4.
To add a device, first click the Add
button. Then select the type of interface you want to configure from
the box that appears.
| Note |
|---|
| | A clone button is now available in
Network Configurator. This button can be
used to create a "clone" of an already-existing interface. Using
clone interfaces, a laptop can have one Ethernet interface defined
for a work LAN, and a clone Ethernet device defined for a home LAN.
|
To configure a SLIP interface, you must first supply a phone number,
login name, and password. This will supply the initial parameters
for the chat script needed to establish a SLIP connection. When you
choose Done, a dialog titled Edit
SLIP Interface appears that enables you to further
customize the hardware, communication and networking parameters for
your SLIP interface.
To add a PLIP interface to your system, you only have to supply the
IP address, the remote IP address, and the Netmask. You can also
select whether you want to activate the interface at boot time.
If you are adding an Ethernet, ARCnet, Token Ring or pocket adapter
to your computer, you will need to supply the following information:
Device — This is determined by netconfig based on the devices
already configured.
IP Address — Enter an IP address for your network device.
Netmask — Enter the network mask for your network device.
The network and broadcast addresses are calculated
automatically based on the IP address and netmask you enter.
Activate interface at boot time —
If you want the device to be configured automatically when
your machine boots, select this option.
Allow any user to (de)activate interface —
Check this if you want any user to be able to activate or
deactivate the interface.
Interface configuration protocol —
If you have a BOOTP or DHCP server on your network and would
like to use it to configure the interface, choose the
appropriate option; otherwise, choose
.
After providing the configuration information for your new device,
click Done. The device should appear in your
Interfaces list as an inactive device. (The
active column should have a label of no.) To
activate the new device, first select it with a mouse click and
then choose on the Activate button. If it does
not come up properly, you may need to reconfigure it by choosing
Edit.
In the Routing management screen you have the ability to add, edit,
or remove static networking routes. Adding or editing an entry
involves identical actions, just like the Hosts panel. An edit
dialog box will appear; simply type the new information and click
Done when you are finished. See Figure 15-5 for an example.
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Network sites:
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