Set up Ethernet aliases in Linux

by Vincent Danen | Mar 02, 2005 8:00:00 AM

Tags: Network technology, NETWORKING, OPEN SOURCE, Vincent Danen, IP, IP address, Linux, network, Linux Tips Newsletter

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Takeaway: Learn to map multiple IP addresses to a single NIC by using IP aliasing.

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When you set up a Linux system's network, you typically assign one IP address per network interface card (NIC). This serves as the primary address for the NIC. For example, a firewall may have one Ethernet interface (e.g., eth0) assigned an external ISP-supplied IP, whereas the other interface (e.g., eth1) would have a local IP used on the local LAN.

But in a situation that requires multiple IP addresses on a machine (all of which connect to the same network), you don't need one NIC per IP address. Linux is capable of mapping multiple IP addresses to a single NIC by using IP aliasing.

To set up an IP alias, execute the following:

# ifconfig eth0:0 192.168.5.12 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

This assigns the IP address 192.168.5.12 to eth0 as the first alias (noted as eth0:0) on eth0. If you look at the output of ifconfig, you'll see the distinct IP address for eth0 and another for eth0:0.

If you need to add another IP address, just run the same command as root, and increment the alias number. In this example, the next alias number would be eth0:1.

On Mandrakelinux, Red Hat, and similar systems, you can make aliases automatic by creating files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/. In this directory, create a new file called ifcfg-eth0:0 that contains the following contents:

IPADDR="192.168.5.12"
NETMASK="255.255.255.0"

On systems that don't use these network scripts, just add the call to ifconfig directly in your startup script (usually /etc/rc.d/rc.local).

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