How to setup a local Area Network between two Ubuntu servers

Eric MulovhedziChief Engineer
Published:
Updated:
Note: for this to work properly you need to use a Cross-Over network cable.

1. Connect both servers S1 and S2 on the second network slots respectively. Note that you can use the 1st slots but usually these would be occupied by the Service Provider's network that provides you or your server with internet access.

2. On server [S1], type "ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.1"  and

3.  On server [S2], type "ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.2"

4. While still on server [S2], type "ping 192.168.1.1" to see if you can see server [S1] successfully.

One can also type just "ifconfig" to see all their existing network connections

Thats all.

NB: By default this local area network configurations are not persistent unlike the public IP address once so every-time you restart a server the configuration is going to be lost. In order to by-pass this you do the following:

1. Go and edit file "/etc/network/interfaces"

    i.e. sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces # you can also use "ed" instead "nano" or "vi"

2. Add line "auto eth1" below "auto eth0" settings

3. Add these lines right after your "eth1 auto"

 
   iface eth1 inet static
                               address 192.168.1.2
                               netmask 255.255.255.0
                               network 192.168.1.0
                               broadcast 192.168.1.255

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4. Restart the network: sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

5. Then restart the server and see if it works

That's all.

In case you want to copy data to and fro here is the command that you can use:

 
wget -b ftp://username:password@192.168.1.1//bckupfolder/file.tar.gz -O /bckupfolder/`date +"%Y-%m-%d"`/file.tar.gz;

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this transfers a file called "file.tar.gz" from server [S1] into server [S2] into a folder called "backupfolder" so this command has to be run in server [S2].
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Comments (2)

Eric MulovhedziChief Engineer

Author

Commented:
Nice,

Thanks.
Top Expert 2015

Commented:
In last ten years adapters are madie with auto-MDI/x PHYs, so cros-over cables are not needed.

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