[ale] Q: Alternate network setups in SuSE-10.x

[brian at polibyte.com (Brian Pitts)]

John Mills wrote:
> I have a SuSE-10.2 laptop that normally starts its wired connection using 
> DHCP using (I believe) 'if-up' rather than 'network manager'. (I just took 
> whatever default came at installation.)
> 
> I would like to switch between my current DHCP setup and a preset static 
> setup for bench testing.
> 
> How can I configure the system to allow these two choices, preferably 
> defaulting to DHCP on startup?


I haven't tried it, but I think you could define something like the following in /etc/network/interfaces

auto eth0

iface eth0 inet dhcp

iface testing inet static
              address 192.168.0.111
              netmask 255.255.255.0
              gateway 192.168.0.1

Then to switch between them

ifdown eth0
ifup eth0=testing
ifdown eth0
ifup eth0

Ideas taken from http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-gateway.en.html

-Brian