Ethernet Configuration

Configuring Ethernet interfaces is something that happens every time you connect your computer to a router or modem that links you to the Internet. Seemingly at times you may not do much by yourself, but underneath the interface that you see, be it Windows or Linux, configurations are taking place that you can modify to improve your computer`s efficiency.

First of all, what is an Ethernet interface. Anything that allows you to connect to another device like a router or computer is typically called of as an Ethernet interface. These are more commonly displayed in everyday life as your typical Network cards which are used to construct a Local Area Network, be it at your home or at your job, you usually have a computer with a Network card connected to a router somewhere.

By default, reason why you don`t need to fiddle with anything on your Ethernet interfaces when you buy a new computer and want it to connect to your router it`s because it`s using a DHCP Ethernet configuration. This means that the configuration of protocol and IP is all done automatically between the network card and the router. For the most part, this works, as long as all you want is to surf the web and little more, but if you want to do something else the configuration will have to go a bit deeper.

Linux Ethernet configurations are relatively straight forward too. You will access the property controls and have access to the configuration of the Ethernet interface IP, primary and secondary DNS and so forth. Through this you`ll be able to make specialized configurations along with setting a local static IP which will be very useful when it comes to port forwarding or setting up a DMZ.

If on the other hand you`re trying to do a Cisco Ethernet configuration you`ll find a lot more options to fiddle with and consequentially more possibilities. Rather than configuring the network card with static IPs and whatnot, you may use the Cisco equipment, like the router, to set half-static IPs based on the Ethernet interface`s MAC address. Cisco routers also prevent things like VLANs which will allow you to create separate local area networks for different groups of users.

Also a more recent feature to exist in this world is the Gigabit Ethernet configuration. So far the current Ethernet interfaces worked with speeds of up to 100 Mbps, but finally through the say four copper pair cable you can now achieve speeds of 1 Gbps, but, for that you will require to have compatible equipment on both ends, be it client computers or routers. Needless to say that the speed being 10 times superior will bring a noticeable impact to your network`s efficiency.