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2. General Network Configuration

Since many people don't use the Linux networking code at all until they get a PPP link, this section describes generally what's needed to get things running. In principle none of this is special to PPP. For more details, you should consult the relevant Linux HOWTOs. If you already understand network setup, you can skip this section.

2.1 Boot Time Configuration (/etc/rc Scripts)

The first file that requires attention is the rc script that does network configuration at boot time, called /etc/ or /etc/rc.d/{1,2} or something similar, depending on your Linux distribution. This file should ifconfig the loopback interface lo, and should add an interface route for it. These lines might look something like this:

        $CONFIG lo
        $ROUTE add loopback

        /sbin/ifconfig lo
        /sbin/route add

However, it should not config an ethernet card or install any other routes (unless you actually have an ethernet card, in which case I'll assume you know what to do). Many distributions will provide scripts that expect you to have an ethernet card.

2.2 The Hosts File (/etc/hosts)

Next, you must ensure that /etc/hosts has at least the following line:   localhost

2.3 Nameserver (DNS) Configuration

Finally, you need to configure the domain name system by putting appropriate lines in /etc/resolv.conf. It should look like this:


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