Networking in SpareMint

Networking SpareMint made Easy

SpareMint allows easy configuration of network parameters in the /etc/sysconfig folder. All that is needed is to modify 2 files to get it working. As usual, the network hardware as well as the device drive (in the form of XIF files) must be available, and the XIF files are copied into the Mint system folder, in our guides should be C:\MINT\1-16-1. Also the INET.XDD is also enabled (again found in the Mint system folder, C:\MINT\1-16-1).

Disabling the old network software

The first thing to do is to stop our olde network software configurations from being started. If you have been using this guide, they should be located in the MINT.CNF file and will look like this:

exec ifconfig en0 addr 192.168.0.28 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

exec route add default en0 gw 192.168.0.1 metric 1

Just comment them, so that they are not loaded by Mint on startup

#exec ifconfig en0 addr 192.168.0.28 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

#exec route add default en0 gw 192.168.0.1 metric 1

Updating the Interface file

First we setup the binding parameters for the interface. This is done by editing the file /etc/sysconfig/config.if and by adding the parameter in the following parameter sequence:

Add the parameter line immediately below the last line (normally a comment) of the file. There should not be any empty lines in between else it will fail. The added line is shown in red below, which configures the same settings as our quick & dirty method.

# example: ne0 192.168.0.10 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255

# this setup interface ne0 with IP 192.168.0.10

#en0 192.168.0.10 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255

en0 192.168.0.28 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255

3. Updating the routing file

Routing provides information to the computer on how to route information around several network. Normally this would be telling the interface where is the gateway to the external network. Any network packet not for the local network (same subnet) will be routed via the gateway to the external network.

To modify the routing file, edit the file /etc/sysconfig/defaultroute and add the route parameters in the follow sequence:

Add the following line immediately below the last line (normally a comment) of the file. There should not be any empty lines in between else it will fail. The added line is shown below in red. This again configures the same settings as our quick & dirty method.

# example: ne0 192.168.0.200

# this set the defaultroute over ne0 to 192.168.0.200

#en0 192.168.0.1

en0 192.168.0.1