The Linuxconf Utility

The Linuxconf Utility

If you read chapter 2 and configured your net card, the settings will be already in the net card properties. If not, proceed as follows.

Welcome to the heart of the system administration. This is the control center and holds all administration utilities. The Linuxconf can be run under text mode and graphical mode. If you run the utility under text mode use the tab key to move between fields. The only difference between the text mode and graphical mode is that in the graphical mode you can use your mouse (if the appropriate driver is loaded for your mouse, may work under text mode too), the rest of the options are exactly the same. I will discuss linuxconf in graphical mode, because my guess is that in the next couple of years most of the distributions will use graphical administration mode.

Note: The first time you run Linuxconf you will see a welcome screen, select quit continuing to the main entry.

Start your X graphical interface:

[agustin@server2 agustin]$startx

Once you are at the graphical interface at the run command type linuxconf.

When you click run or hit enter you will be prompted for a password. That password is root's password. Type the password and hit enter. If you get a bad command error, it is most likely that linuxconf is not installed. Refer to software installation in chapter 4. The main screen has three important tabs: Config, control, and status.

You can do almost everything with this administration utility. But remember linuxconf is only for system administrators. During your practice of system administration, do not be scared to make changes to any part of the system. Keep in mind that whatever goes wrong in the real world, you the system administrator will have to fix it.

*Learn how to use this utility before you try to use it on someone else's server.

If you have not configured your system yet, I will walk you through to make it a success. I do believe that this book will assist you better than any out there. Stick with me, if you have encountered difficulties, read chapter 2, quick start. It may clarify your thoughts.