Before you get that „Hey, we’ve had that already”-feeling, you should remember that the networking you set up in the beginning of the Gentoo installation was just for the installation. Right now you are going to configure networking for your Gentoo system permanently.

Note: More detailed information about networking, including advanced topics like bonding, bridging, 802.1Q VLANs or wireless networking is covered in the Gentoo Network Configuration section.

All networking information is gathered in /etc/conf.d/net. It uses a straightforward yet not intuitive syntax if you don’t know how to set up networking manually. But don’t fear, we’ll explain everything. A fully commented example that covers many different configurations is available in /etc/conf.d/net.example.

DHCP is used by default. For DHCP to work, you will need to install a DHCP client. This is described later in Installing Necessary System Tools. Do not forget to install a DHCP client.

If you need to configure your network connection either because you need specific DHCP options or because you do not use DHCP at all, open /etc/conf.d/net with your favorite editor (nano is used in this example):

Code Listing 7: Opening /etc/conf.d/net for editing

# nano -w /etc/conf.d/net

You will see the following file:

Code Listing 8: Default /etc/conf.d/net

# This blank configuration will automatically use DHCP for any net.*
# scripts in /etc/init.d.  To create a more complete configuration,
# please review /etc/conf.d/net.example and save your configuration
# in /etc/conf.d/net (this file :]!).

To enter your own IP address, netmask and gateway, you need to set both config_eth0 and routes_eth0:

To use DHCP and add specific DHCP options, define config_eth0 and dhcp_eth0:

Code Listing 10: Automatically obtaining an IP address for eth0

config_eth0=( „dhcp” )
dhcp_eth0=”nodns nontp nonis”

Please read /etc/conf.d/net.example for a list of all available options.

If you have several network interfaces repeat the above steps for config_eth1, config_eth2, etc.

Now save the configuration and exit to continue.

Automatically Start Networking at Boot

To have your network interfaces activated at boot, you need to add them to the default runlevel.

Code Listing 11: Adding net.eth0 to the default runlevel

# rc-update add net.eth0 default

If you have several network interfaces, you need to create the appropriate net.eth1, net.eth2 etc. initscripts for those. You can use ln to do this:

Code Listing 12: Creating extra initscripts

# cd /etc/init.d
# ln -s net.lo net.eth1
# rc-update add net.eth1 default

Tehát végülis a figyelmetlenséged miatt nem működött körülbelül másfél hónapig az a fránya Gentoo…