Starting and Stopping the Network

If An Ethernet device is found during installation, the network is configured to start automatically at boot time unless uncheck the Activate on boot option for the device. To disable it use the chkconfig network off command. To enable it use the chkconfig network on command.

The /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf are referenced each time they are used, so modifications to them take place immediately. If the hostname is modified in /etc/sysconfig/network, the change does not occur until the next reboot. To immediately change the hostname, execute the command hostname as the root user.

If you modify network settings in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, the changes do not take place dynamically ,until the network is restarted or the individual device is shut down and brought back up. To restart the entire network (the loopback device and all network devices), use the command service network restart as root. To shut an individual device down and bring it back up, as root, execute the command ifdown and then ifup , where is the name of the device such as eth0.

To stop all the network devices, use the service network stop command as root. To start the network, use the command service network start as root.