Manual IP network configuration (CentOS)

Just installed CentOS 6.0 test server. In order to save bandwidth, I downloaded the minimal installation ISO which produced a Linux system that was able to boot correctly, but provided none of the standard system-config-… tools. So in order to continue installation, I had to setup IP information for the systems network card by manually editing files. This is a summary of the steps I followed.

1. Go to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ and edit file ifcfg-eth0. Then, make sure you provide the following keys

            DEVICE=eth0
            HWADDR=01:1f:29:c2:23:15
            BOOTPROTO=static         
            NM_CONTROLLED=yes
            ONBOOT=yes
            IPADDR=10.5.0.6
            NETMASK=255.255.255.0

2. Open file /etc/sysconfig//network and add information for host name and default gateway like this :

            NETWORKING=yes
            HOSTNAME=test.webstart.lt
            GATEWAY=10.5.0.1

3. The DNS servers are defined in /etc/resolv.conf. Typically the file looks like this:

            nameserver 10.5.1.1
            nameserver 10.5.1.2

4. Network manager should pick up the changes immediately. In case it does not, restart the netwrok service like this :

            /etc/init.d/network restart

This is the minimal setup that worked for me. After I was able to set up my yum proxy and begin installation of CentOS packages, I was able to run system-config-network, which changed many of the previous entries. For example the gateway information in now stored in ifcfg-eth0, along with the DNS information. The previous setup however, is what go me started.