Man, we've covered a lot of topics in our 54 episodes prior to this one. But, in our rush to get you the latest chocolate-covered command-line fu, occasionally we've missed some fundamentals. People write in with questions (which we love) about such items, inspiring a new episode. Back in May, we received a great question from Johnny C:
> I have a suggestion for command line kungfu.
> I need to be able to change my IP Address back and forth from DHCP
> where everything is dynamic to a dedicated IP address.
> I've worked with this for a while and my problems have been not able
> to update DNS on Windows
Ah... good one, sir! Let's face it: the built-in Windows GUI associated with network configuration changes is horrible... forcing numerous clicks through various screens to make even small tweaks. At least we don't have to live through the dreaded reboots of the Windows 95 era just to change IP addresses anymore.
On Windows, for manipulating network configs at the command line, netsh rocks, and it can do what you want, Johnny C, and much more. In fact, when I've got a lazy summer afternoon with nothing better to do, I fire up netsh (or the equally fun and interesting wmic command) and just explore, sometimes for hours on end. The netsh command (like wmic) can run in two modes: either as a little command interpreter of itself (by typing netsh and hitting Enter) lending itself to exploration, or as a single shot command of netsh followed by various options.
To get a glimpse of the capabilities of netsh, run the following:
C:\> netsh
netsh> ?
The following commands are available:
Commands in this context:
.. - Goes up one context level.
? - Displays a list of commands.
abort - Discards changes made while in offline mode.
add - Adds a configuration entry to a list of entries.
advfirewall - Changes to the `netsh advfirewall' context.
alias - Adds an alias.
bridge - Changes to the `netsh bridge' context.
bye - Exits the program.
commit - Commits changes made while in offline mode.
delete - Deletes a configuration entry from a list of entries.
dhcpclient - Changes to the `netsh dhcpclient' context.
dump - Displays a configuration script.
exec - Runs a script file.
exit - Exits the program.
firewall - Changes to the `netsh firewall' context.
help - Displays a list of commands.
http - Changes to the `netsh http' context.
interface - Changes to the `netsh interface' context.
ipsec - Changes to the `netsh ipsec' context.
lan - Changes to the `netsh lan' context.
nap - Changes to the `netsh nap' context.
netio - Changes to the `netsh netio' context.
offline - Sets the current mode to offline.
online - Sets the current mode to online.
p2p - Changes to the `netsh p2p' context.
popd - Pops a context from the stack.
pushd - Pushes current context on stack.
quit - Exits the program.
ras - Changes to the `netsh ras' context.
rpc - Changes to the `netsh rpc' context.
set - Updates configuration settings.
show - Displays information.
unalias - Deletes an alias.
winhttp - Changes to the `netsh winhttp' context.
winsock - Changes to the `netsh winsock' context.
wlan - Changes to the `netsh wlan' context.
Nice! Lots of very useful stuff, including "interface" and "firewall" (the latter of which we discussed in Episode #30). There's also some really nifty settings for ipsec (on 2003 and later) and wlan (on Vista and later) contexts. To change to an individual context, just type its name (such as "interface") and then type ? at the netsh> prompt to get more info about it. You can then navigate down by entering follow-up commands and contexts, and then pop back up to earlier contexts entering a command of dot-dot (".."). I wish there was a "back" command instead of .., but I can cope. There's even a pushd and popd command for netsh contexts, rather similar to the pushd and popd for directories we discussed in Episode #52.
One of my most common uses of netsh is to change IP address settings of the machine. In the spirit of the cliche "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day... teach him to fish and feed him for life", let me show you how you can fish around inside of netsh.
We first invoke netsh and then move to the interface context:
C:\> netsh
netsh> interface
netsh interface> ?
Here, you can see options for various elements we can configure on the machine. Of particular interest to us now is ip (on XP and 2003) or ipv4 (on Vista and later). Happily, you can just type "ip" on Vista, and it will take you to the ipv4 context, so our netsh commands for changing addresses and such are compatible between various versions of our beloved Windows operating system.
netsh interface> ip
netsh interface ip> set ?
Now, we can get a sense of the various items we can set, including addresses, dns, and wins. But, wouldn't it be nice if Windows would give us examples of how to set each? Well, ask and ye shall receive:
netsh interface ip> set address ?
Usage: set address [name=][[source=]dhcp|static] [[address=] [/ ] [[mask=] ] [[gateway=] |none [gwmetric=] ] [[type=]unicast|anycast] [[subinterface=] ] [[store=]active|persistent]
Examples:
set address name="Local Area Connection" source=dhcp
set address "Local Area connection" static 10.0.0.9 255.0.0.0 10.0.0.1 1
If you'd like to get a list of all interfaces available on the machine, you could run (from the normal C:\> prompt, not within netsh):
C:\> netsh interface show interfaceI know... it looks like it is redundantly repeating itself twice back to back, and it is. But, that's the command. Now, we know how to refer to our network interfaces for manipulating them.
Then, to set an IP address, we could just run the command:
C:\> netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection"
static 10.10.10.10 255.255.255.0 10.10.10.1 1
This will set our IP address to 10.10.10.10, with a netmask of 255.255.255.0, a default gateway of 10.10.10.1, and a routing metric (number of hops to that gateway) of 1.
For DHCP, we simply run:
C:\> netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" source=dhcp
OK.... now to answer Johnny C's specific question, setting our primary DNS server:
C:\> netsh interface ip set dnsserver name="Local Area Connection"
static 10.10.10.85 primary
And, if you'd rather get that info from DHCP, you could use:
C:\> netsh interface ip set dnsserver name="Local Area Connection" source=dhcp
I frequently find myself changing between my laboratory network and my production network, which have completely different IP addressing schemes. To help make a quick switch between them, I don't use those one of those goofy network configurator GUIs, because, well, they are kind of tawdry. Instead, I've created two simple scripts that I keep on my desktop: test.bat and prod.bat. Each one contains two netsh commands. The first command sets my IP address, netmask, and default gatewy for either prod or test, and the second command sets my DNS server. When I want to invoke them, I simply run them with admin privs (based on either being logged in as admin, or right clicking and selecting "run as administrator").
Hal kicks it old school:
Where the Windows way is to have one big command that does everything, remember the Unix design religion is to have a bunch of small commands that do simple things and then combine them to produce the effect you want. It doesn't help that Unix systems have been networked devices since the earliest days of the Internet-- we've got multiple generations of command interfaces to deal with. But let me try to hit the high points.
Suppose our system is normally configured to use DHCP but we want to manually move it onto a new network with a static address assignment. Step one is to change your IP address with the ifconfig command:
# ifconfig eth0 10.10.10.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
# ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:18:C3:0D
inet addr:10.10.10.1 Bcast:10.10.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe18:c30d/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:55 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:158 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7542 (7.3 KiB) TX bytes:32712 (31.9 KiB)
Interrupt:18 Base address:0x2024
As you can see from the example above, you can also use ifconfig to display information about an interface's configuration ("ifconfig -a" will display the configuration information for all interfaces on the system).
However, changing the IP address with ifconfig doesn't have any impact on your routing table. You'll probably need to add a default route when you change the IP address:
# route add default gw 10.10.10.254
# netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface
10.10.10.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
0.0.0.0 10.10.10.254 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0
I should note that as you move from on Unix distribution to another, the route command syntax tends to change in minor ways, rendering a command that is syntactically correct on one system completely useless on another. The above example is for Linux. Oh and by the way, if your DHCP configuration has created a default route for the network you used to be on, you can remove it with "route del default gw <ipaddr>".
The last thing you have to do is update your list of local DNS servers. This list is configured in /etc/resolv.conf. Most DHCP clients will simply overwrite the contents of this file with the name servers and local domain they learn from their DHCP servers, but you can also edit this file directly. A sample file might look like:
nameserver 10.10.10.100
search somedomain.com
Replace "somedomain.com" with the default domain you want the host to use for looking up unqualified host names. You can have multiple "nameserver" lines in your file for redundancy. However, I warn you that the timeout on the first lookup is long enough that your users will pick up the phone and call you to tell you the "network is down" before the system fails over to the next name server in the list.
The combination of ifconfig, route, and editing your resolv.conf file should be sufficient to get you manually moved onto a new network. The more interesting question is how to you revert back to using DHCP to configure your network interface? Assuming your machine is configured by default to use DHCP, the easiest thing is to just shut down and then reactivate your network interface. Of course the process for doing this is completely different for each Unix system you encounter. On most Linux systems, however, the following will work:
# ifdown eth0
# ifup eth0
Determining IP information for eth0... done.
# ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:18:C3:0D
inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe18:c30d/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7884 (7.6 KiB) TX bytes:44273 (43.2 KiB)
Interrupt:18 Base address:0x2024
By the way if you're looking for your static network interface configuration information, you'll find it in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 on Red Hat systems (including CentOS and Fedora) and in /etc/network/interfaces on Debian systems. This is the place where you can set the default interface configuration parameters to be used when booting. Be aware, however, that on modern Ubuntu systems network configuration is under the control of NetworkManager by default-- a GUI-based network configuration tool very reminiscent of the Windows network configuration GUI. Helpful for people coming over from the Windows environment I guess, but kind of a pain for us old farts who are used to configuring network interfaces with vi.