Quick Guide: Set Static IP Address Ubuntu

archive

If you’ve chosen the shortcuts through your Ubuntu installation, chances are you did not spend a lot of time setting up the network. I prefer using static IP addresses for my development machines for many reasons, but primarily because it helps with organizing and accessing them. Below is a quick guide on how to set one up.

1. Edit the network configuration

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Change it to the following:

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.0.100
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.168.0.0
    broadcast 192.168.0.255
    gateway 192.168.0.1

Then restart your network configuration:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

2. Edit your hosts file

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Change it to the following:

127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost
192.168.0.100   serv1.example.com        serv1

3. Set the hostname

sudo echo serv1.example.com > /etc/hostname

4. Apply the hostname

sudo /etc/init.d/hostname.sh start

5. Check the hostname

hostname

6. Check the full hostname (FQDN)

hostname -f

If everything was done correctly, both commands should display the same name.

NOTE: This should work on Ubuntu versions 8.04 (LTS) or earlier.