Raspberry Pi A, User Manual, Page: 90 / 314

P A R T I
C O N N E C T I N G T H E B O A R D
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FOR MOST USERS, configuring the Raspberry Pi’s network is as easy as plugging a cable
into the Model B’s Ethernet port—or a USB Ethernet adapter, in the case of the Model A. For
others, however, the network requires manual configuration.
If you know that your network doesn’t have a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
server—a system that tells the Pi and other devices on the network how they should con-
nect—or if you want to use a USB wireless adapter with the Pi, read on.
Wired Networking
In some instances, in order for the Pi’s network to operate correctly you may need to config-
ure it manually. Normally, the network in a home, school or office has a DHCP server that
tells the Pi and other devices on the network how they should connect. Some networks don’t
have a DHCP server, however, and need to be set up manually.
The list of network interfaces, along with information about how they should be configured,
is stored in a file called
interfaces
located in the folder
/etc/network
. This is a file only
the root user can edit, because removing a network interface from this list will cause it to stop
working.
From the terminal, you can edit this file using a variety of different text editors. For simplic-
ity, the
nano
text editor should be used for this process. Open the file for editing with the
following command:
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
Nano
is a powerful yet lightweight text editor, with a simple user interface (see Figure 5-1).
You can move your cursor around the document with the arrow keys, save the file by holding
down the CTRL key and pressing O, and quit by holding down the CTRL key and pressing X.
The line you need to edit for manual configuration starts with
iface eth0 inet
. Delete
dhcp
from the end of this line and replace it with
static
, press Enter to start a new line,
and then fill in the remaining details in the following format with a tab at the start of each
line:
[Tab] address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
[Tab] netmask xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
[Tab] gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx