Identify Logical and Physical Network Interface Names (Oracle Linux or RHEL)

During installation and configuration of the Oracle or Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS, you reach a point where you must enter the logical and physical names (MAC addresses) of the network interfaces.

This section explains how to launch a user shell during the Linux configuration to obtain the logical and physical network interface names that you need to continue with the configuration.

1. At the boot prompt type: linux rescue and then press Enter.

   The Choose a Language screen appears.

2. In the Choose a Language screen, select the appropriate language, and click OK.

   The Keyboard Type screen appears.

3. In the Keyboard Type screen, select the appropriate configuration, and then click OK.

   The Setup Network screen appears.

4. In the Setup Network screen, click No.

   The Rescue screen appears.

5. In the Rescue screen, click Skip.

   The user shell appears.

6. At the command prompt (#) in the user shell, type the following command to display all network interfaces, and then press Enter.

   # ifconfig -a

   The output of the Linux named network interfaces appear.

   If you have multiple network interfaces and the output of interfaces scrolls off the top of the screen, you can display the output per interface.

7. To view the output of each network interface, type the following at the command prompt, and then press Enter:

   # ifconfig eth#

   where eth# is the interface number. For example, if you type:

   # ifconfig eth0

   the output for eth0 appears:

   eth0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:14:4F:8D:52:BE
             inet addr:10.182.92.196  Bcast:10.182.93.255  Mask:255.255.254.0
             inet6 addr: fe80::214:4fff:fe8d:52be/64 Scope:Link
             UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
             RX packets:14461296 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
             TX packets:1061312 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
             collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
             RX bytes:1282625453 (1.1 GiB)  TX bytes:118834056 (113.3 MiB)
             Interrupt:54 Base address:0xc000 

   • The eth0 entry in the first column is the Oracle Linux logical named interface. This first column in the output identifies the logical names Oracle Linux or RHEL assigned to the network interface.
   • The 00:14:4F:8D:52:BE entry in the second column (first row) is the physical MAC address of the network port.
8. Record the logical network interface name with the physical port MAC address for future reference. You need to refer to this record when configuring the network interfaces during the Oracle Linux or RHEL OS installation.
9. When you are done, do one of the following to exit the user shell.
   • From Oracle ILOM, select Remote Control > Remote Power Control > Reset.
   • From the Oracle ILOM Remote Console in the Keyboard menu, select Control Alt Delete.
   • From other consoles, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
10. Restart the OS installation program.

Next Steps

• Install a Linux OS (Oracle System Assistant)

• Installing a Linux OS Manually