Install/Network

Install Guide: Network

Install Guide, Chapter 15

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It's important to ensure that you will be able to connect to your local-area network after you reboot into Funtoo Linux. There are three approaches you can use for configuring your network: NetworkManager, dhcpcd, and the Funtoo Linux Networking scripts. Here's how to choose which one to use based on the type of network you want to set up.

Wi-Fi

For laptop/mobile systems where you will be using Wi-Fi, roaming, and connecting to various networks, NetworkManager is strongly recommended. Since Wi-Fi cards require firmware to operate, it is also recommended that you emerge the linux-firmware ebuild if you have not done so already:

chroot # emerge linux-firmware networkmanager
chroot #  rc-update add NetworkManager default

The above command will ensure that NetworkManager starts after you boot into Funtoo Linux. Once you've completed these installation steps and have booted into Funtoo Linux, you can use the nmtui command (which has an easy-to-use console-based interface) to configure NetworkManager so that it will connect (and automatically reconnect, after reboot) to a Wi-Fi access point:

chroot # nmtui

For more information about NetworkManager, see the NetworkManager package page.

Desktop (Wired DHCP)

For a home desktop or workstation with wired Ethernet that will use DHCP, the simplest and most effective option to enable network connectivity is to simply add dhcpcd to the default runlevel:

chroot # rc-update add dhcpcd default

When you reboot, dhcpcd will run in the background and manage all network interfaces and use DHCP to acquire network addresses from a DHCP server.

If your upstream DHCP server is dnsmasq, it can be configured to assign addresses via mac address to make servers on DHCP feasible.

Server (Static IP)

For servers, the Funtoo Linux Networking scripts are recommended. They are optimized for static configurations and things like virtual ethernet bridging for virtualization setups. See Funtoo Linux Networking for information on how to use Funtoo Linux's template-based network configuration system.

Hostname

By default Funtoo uses "localhost" as hostname. Although the system will work perfectly fine using this name, some ebuilds refuse to install when detecting localhost as hostname. It also may create confusion if several systems use the same hostname. Therefore, it is advised to change it to a more meaningful name. The hostname itself is arbitrary, meaning you can choose almost any combination of characters, as long as it makes sense to the system administrator. To change the hostname, edit

chroot # nano /etc/conf.d/hostname

Look for the line starting with hostname and change the entry between the quotes. Save the file, on the next boot Funtoo will use the new hostname.

   Warning

Do not use special characters in the hostname, as the shell may interpret these, leading to unpredictable results. Use the Latin alphabet: a-z, A-Z, 0-9

Install Guide, Chapter 15

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