Fedora - Network configuration

Network configuration on Fedora is quite similar to the one for other versions of RedHat Linux, besides the standard files, the main configuration is done on /etc/sysconfig/network where is defined the hostname and can be placed the default gateway and in the files of the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory.

The TCP/IP network setup is done with the script /etc/init.d/network, with obviously must be started before other network services on a connected machine.
The official graphical configuration tool is system-config-network (Menu System Settings - Network), from here is possible to define the IP parameters for all the interfaces found on the system (tab Devices, modifies the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-interface and /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-interface files), the IP of the DNS servers (tab DNS, modifies /etc/resolv.conf), the static host IP assignement (tab Hosts, modifies /etc/hosts).
Fedora supports also user's profiles, with differnet network settings. The Network Configuration tools easily let the user define a profile and its parameters, the relevant system files are placed in the directory /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/profilename/. Currently Fedora does not allow the definition of a profile at boot time, when the machine is started the default "Common" profile is used, to switch to a custom one either launch system-config-network graphical tool and select your profile or type system-config-network-cmd -p profilename --activate.
RedHat provides other network configuration tools:
netconfig is an old text configuration tool, which is obsolete and may be used to a fast configuration;
system-config-network-tui is the text version of the graphical Network Configuration Tool.
system-config-network-druid (Menu System tools - Internet configuration wizard) is a guided wizard which helps an easy configuration of Ethernet, modem, ISDN, DSL, wireless configuration.

Firewall configuration
Red Hat stores the firewall configuration in the /etc/sysconfig/iptables file which is formatted in order to be used by the iptables-restore command. Firewalling is managed with the /etc/init.d/iptables script which can be followed by arguments like start to activate firewalling, stop to disable it, panic to shutdown any Internet access, status to view the current iptables rules.
A simple and not extremely flexible configuration tool is system-config-firewall, which is adeguate for a desktop machine but surely not for a router/firewall.

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