Overview
By the end of this article you should be able to answer the following questions:
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# Set the entry:
ONBOOT=yes
# in the file:
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3
# First locate the connection:
$ nmcli connection show
# Then apply the setting:
$ nmcli connection modify {connection-name} connection.autoconnect yes
In rhel, there are 3 different naming conventions available for labelling your machine NIC:
- BIOS naming – names are based on hardware property of a given NIC. For example:
- em1, em2, …etc – names for embedded NICs, i.e NICs that are integrated into the motherboard.
- p
p – e.g. p4p2, this mean’s the fourth pci slot on the motherboard, and the second ethernet port on the NIC, since you can buy NICs that contains upto 4 ports, hence let’s you plug in up 4 ethernet cables.
- udev naming – e.g. eth0, eth1. This naming convention is not that informative.
- Physical naming – same as bios naming.
- logical naming – vlan and alias configurations. Not important for RHCSA course
Autoconnect Interfaces at boot time
Your network interfaces can be configured to automatically start them up at boot time.
In order to autostart an interface at boot time, you need to tell Network Manager which interfaces should be started up at boot time. This in turn is dictated by which connections (config files) are going to be activated at boot time. This is controlled by each connection’s “ONBOOT” setting.
So an easy way to identify which interfaces are going to be activated at boot time is by viewing the connection files, like this:
$ grep -R "ONBOOT" /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-CustCon:ONBOOT=no /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3:ONBOOT=yes /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3-static:ONBOOT=no /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s8:ONBOOT=yes /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s8-1:ONBOOT=yes /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo:ONBOOT=yes
Therefore for a given interface, if there is connection associated to it which contains the setting “ONBOOT=yes”, then than interface will start up. But just to be sure, you also need to ensure that the connection you are interested in is also managed by NetworkManager:
nmcli -p con show
=============================================================================
NetworkManager connection profiles
=============================================================================
NAME UUID TYPE DEVICE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
System enp0s3 ad2de184-098f-4eb8-92af-3e6c086f1186 802-3-ethernet enp0s3
enp0s3-static 0d936343-5c8e-4545-9174-f295b6c9ae86 802-3-ethernet --
enp0s8 7607287c-31fd-4cb3-b663-a4e4120ef265 802-3-ethernet --
CustCon 991d8f70-7f92-481e-9202-c7afe5a434c0 802-3-ethernet --
And also that the Network Manager service is running and enabled:
$ systemctl status NetworkManager
NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2015-10-04 15:06:32 BST; 20min ago
Main PID: 5496 (NetworkManager)
CGroup: /system.slice/NetworkManager.service
├─5496 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
└─5506 /sbin/dhclient -d -q -sf /usr/libexec/nm-dhcp-helper -pf /var/run/dhclient-enp0s3....
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local dhclient[5506]: bound to 10.0.2.15 -- renewal in 32475 seconds.
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: (enp0s3): device state change: ip...0]
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: (enp0s3): device state change: se...0]
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: NetworkManager state is now CONNE...AL
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: NetworkManager state is now CONNE...TE
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: NetworkManager state is now CONNE...AL
Oct 04 15:06:32 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: (enp0s3): Activation: successful,...d.
Oct 04 15:07:03 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: (enp0s3): Activation: Stage 4 of .....
Oct 04 15:07:03 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: (enp0s3): Activation: Stage 4 of .....
Oct 04 15:07:03 puppetmaster.local NetworkManager[5496]: (enp0s3): Activation: Stage 4 of ...e.
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
Now if there is a connection that has the ONBOOT=NO setting.
Let’s say we have:
$ cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3-static TYPE=Ethernet BOOTPROTO=dhcp DEFROUTE=yes PEERDNS=yes PEERROUTES=yes IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL=no IPV6INIT=yes IPV6_AUTOCONF=yes IPV6_DEFROUTE=yes IPV6_PEERDNS=yes IPV6_PEERROUTES=yes IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL=no NAME=enp0s3-static UUID=0d936343-5c8e-4545-9174-f295b6c9ae86 DEVICE=enp0s3 ONBOOT=no
Let’s say we want to enable this connection so that the interface autostarts at the next reboot with this connection, then you run the following command:
$ nmcli connection modify enp0s3-static connection.autoconnect yes
To confirm this command has worked we do:
$ cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3-static | grep ONBOOT ONBOOT=yes
Another thing you need to is see if there are any other connections for this interface, if so then run the nmcli command to turn off onboot for them, so that you only have a singe connection for the given device, which has the setting “ONBOOT=yes”.