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IP Aliasing : Assigning multiple IP addresses to

single NIC
Hello Linux-fanatics, in this tutorial we are going to learn to assign multiple IP addresses to a single
NIC (Network Interface Card) . This process of assigning multiple addresses to single network
interface is called IP aliasing.
Main advantage of using IP aliasing is that we dont need multiple NICs to configure multiple IPs,
hence saving us cost & configuration time. IP aliasing is most useful when using Apache IP based
virtual hosting.
For this tutorial, we are going to use RHEL/CentOS 7 but same process can also be used older versions
of RHEL/CentOS, the only change being the name of the network interfaces other than that process is
same.
Network interfaces files in RHEL/CentOS 7(on older versions as well) are located at
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts & name of the interfaces are usually ifcfg-ethX, where X is the
number of the interface. In my case, its ifcfg-eth0. So we will be using same for the purpose of this
tutorial.
(Also Read : Ifconfig command with examples )

Configuration
We will assign two different IPs in addition to the one we have already assigned to our interface
ifcfg-eth0. To create IP alias, we are going to use our default network interface file & then will create
two copies of the file with names ifcfg-eth0:1 & ifcfg-eth0:2

$ cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
$ cp ifcfg-eth0 ifcfg-eth0:1
$ cp ifcfg-eth0 ifcfg-eth0:2

Now, lets open primary network interface i.e. eth0, & see its content

$ vi ifcfg-eth0

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
IPADDR=192.168.1.100
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
HWADDR=32:0A:21:54:ND:6D

We will now configure our other network interfaces, we only need to make changes for DEVICE &
IPADDR for aliasing

$ vi ifcfg-eth0:1

DEVICE=eth0:1
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
IPADDR=192.168.1.110
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
HWADDR=32:0A:21:54:ND:6D

& same is to be done for ifcfg:eth0:2

$ vi ifcfg-eth0:2

DEVICE=eth0:2
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
IPADDR=192.168.1.120
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
HWADDR=32:0A:21:54:ND:6D
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Save both files & restart the network service for changes to take effect.

$ systemctl restart network

To check IP addresses have bee assigned or not, run ifconfig

$ ifconfig

This completes our tutorial, if you are having any issues/comments, please do mention them in the
comment box below.

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