Under Red Hat Enterprise Linux, all network communications occur between configured software interfaces and physical networking devices connected to the system.
The configuration files for network interfaces, and the scripts used to activate and deactivate them, are located in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory. Although the number and type of interface files can differ from system to system, there are three categories of files that exist in this directory:
Interface configuration files
Interface control scripts
Network function files
The files in each of these categories work together to enable various network devices.
This chapter explores the relationship between these files and how they are used.