Some RHEL distros can cause common networking configuration issues on the first installation, so you will not be able to update the packages on a server or browse external Websites from your laptop. CentOS was one of them, but now Rocky Linux is facing the same networking issue on his first boot. Once Rocky Linux has been installed on your server or laptop the default network config is not configured to use DHCP.
In this tutorial, I will show you the steps on how to configure DHCP and get network connectivity.
Prerequisites
- Rocky Linux
- sudo privileges
Configure DHCP on Rocky Linux
Step 1. Once you have installed a new fresh instance of Rocky Linux make sure that the NetworkManager service is up and running:
systemctl status NetworkManager
Output:
● NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
Loaded: loaded
Active: active (running) since Mon 2021-07-26 23:20:23 CEST; 50min ago
Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
Main PID: 1225 (NetworkManager)
Tasks: 4 (limit: 4915)
Step 2. NetworkManager applies a configuration read from the files found in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<IFACE_NAME>. On your first boot the default config should look like this:
TYPE=Ethernet
PROXY_METHOD=none
BROWSER_ONLY=no
BOOTPROTO=none
DEFROUTE=yes
IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL=no
IPV6INIT=no
NAME=eth0
UUID=95a13599-42cf-43d8-9fc1-d7c8b8d282dd
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=192.168.0.1
PREFIX=24
GATEWAY=192.168.0.xxx
DNS1=192.168.0.254
DNS2=1.1.1.1
IPV6_DISABLED=yes
Step 3. In the above /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<IFACE_NAME> listing, we can see that the value of the BOOTPROTO parameter is set to none. It shows that it is configured to use static IP address. To establish network connectivity, you will have to change the value of the BOOTPROTO parameter from none to DHCP and also remove the IPADDR, PREFIX, and GATEWAY lines. The config should look like:
TYPE=Ethernet
PROXY_METHOD=none
BROWSER_ONLY=no
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
DEFROUTE=yes
IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL=no
IPV6INIT=no
IPV6_AUTOCONF=yes
IPV6_DEFROUTE=yes
IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL=no
NAME=eth0
UUID=95a13599-42cf-43d8-9fc1-d7c8b8d282dd
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
The ONBOOT has value yes which tells the system that the connection will be activated during boot time. Once you are done, save the file, reboot the machine, and you should have network access.
Conclusion
This tutorial shows you how to quickly resolve the network connectivity on your first installation of Rocky Linux using DHCP. Feel free to leave a comment below and if you find this tutorial useful, follow our official channel on Telegram.