There are many ways of configuring and customizing the way your computer behaves on a network.
If you change the settings of your network connection or connect to a different network than usual, you may have to enable the connection yourself.
If your network connection is managed by Network Manager (as most are), the connection should be enabled automatically.
If the connection is not enabled automatically:
Find the Network Manager icon in the notification area. It should look like a small signal strength indicator or a computer monitor and will probably be close to the clock
Right-click the icon and ensure that Enable Networking is ticked
If you have a wireless network connection, also ensure that Enable Wireless is ticked
Left-click once on the Network Manager icon and then click on the network you want to connect to
After a short period you should receive a message which says Connection Established
You should now be connected to a network.
If you are not connected to a network after following the procedure above:
Left-click the Network Manager icon again and press Manual configuration...
Select the Connections tab
Tick the box next to your network connection to enable the connection
The connection process make take a short while
Press Close
ifup is a command-line tool for enabling network connections.
To enable a network connection:
Press
→ → to open a TerminalType sudo ifdown eth1
in the Terminal and press Return, replacing eth1 with the name of your network interface if it is different
Enter your password if prompted
Type sudo ifup eth1
in the Terminal and press Return, again replacing eth1 with the name of your network interface
If you have connected successfully, you should see a message similar to the following (the numbers may be different):
DHCPACK from 192.168.2.1 bound to 192.168.2.4 -- renewal in 536349522 seconds.
Sometimes you may want to disable a network connection. There are several different ways of achieving this.
It is likely that Network Manager is running your network connections. If so, you must disconnect from the network by disabling your network connection in Network Manager:
Find the Network Manager icon in the notification area. It should look like a small signal strength indicator or a computer monitor and will probably be close to the clock
Right-click the icon and untick Enable Networking
You should be disconnected from the network
If Network Manager is not running, use the Network Settings tool to disconnect your network connection:
Press
→ →Select the Connections tab
Untick your network connection to disconnect it
Press Close
ifdown is a command-line tool for disabling network connections.
To disable a network connection using ifdown:
Press
→ → to open a TerminalType sudo ifdown eth1
in the Terminal and press Return, replacing eth1 with the name of your network interface if it is different
Enter your password if prompted
Your network connection should be disconnected
When connected to a network, your computer can be referred to by its host name. It is possible to change the host name of your computer.
Open
→ → .Click General, and enter the name of the computer in the Host name field.
Restart the computer for the change to take effect.
You can share files and folders with other people on your network.
Press
→ →You may receive a message which says Sharing services are not installed. If this is the case, ensure that the two checkboxes in the message box are checked and press Install services. Sharing service support will then be downloaded and installed; this may take a while.
Select the Shared Folders tab and press Add
Select the location of the folder you wish to share by changing the Path option
Choose Windows networks (SMB) from the Share through option
Enter a name and comment for the shared folder
If you would like people accessing the shared folder to be able to add, change and remove files in the folder, uncheck Read only. If you leave Read only checked, people will only be able to view files in the folder
Press OK to make the shared folder available. Other people on the same network (LAN) as you should now be able to access the folder
If you would like to access a shared folder hosted on an Xubuntu computer by using computers running Windows, you may have to perform some additional steps:
Press
→ → to open a TerminalType sudo smbpasswd -a username
, replacing “username” with your own username. Press Return to run the command.
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You can find out what your username is by typing |
Enter your password when prompted with “[sudo] password for username:” and press Return again.
When prompted with “New SMB password:”, enter the password that you would like to use to access the shared folder and then press Return. You can leave the password blank if you like, which will allow anyone to access the shared folder.
When prompted with “Retype new SMB password:”, enter the password that you just entered and then press Return
You should now be able to connect to the shared folders on the Xubuntu computer
If you are unable to connect to a shared folder using Microsoft Windows, try using the IP address of the Xubuntu computer rather than its host name to access the share:
Press
→ → and select the Devices tabSelect the name of your network connection from the Network device option list (for example, “eth0”). If you have several network connections, you may have to try this several times.
Make a note of the number in the IP address column. It should consist of four numbers separated by dots (for example, “192.168.2.10”)
On the Microsoft Windows computer, select \\ipaddress
in the text box, replacing “ipaddress” with the IP address of the Xubuntu computer
Press OK to connect to the shared folder
If you are still unable to access the shared folder, check that the folder sharing service is running on the Xubuntu computer:
Press
→ →Find the Folder sharing service (samba) and ensure that the checkbox next to it is checked
Press Close
More information can be found on the Ubuntu community help pages.
A firewall protects a computer system from unauthorized access. It is not normally necessary to install a firewall on an Xubuntu system, because access to the system is closed by default. However, if you run any services that let other computers access yours (for example, the Apache web server), it is advisable to install a firewall. Firestarter is a program that lets you control a firewall through a graphical interface.
Install the Firestarter package from the “Universe” repository (see Add Applications).
After it is installed, run
→ → to configure your firewall. The firewall will now start in the background when your computer starts.Etherape displays network activity among different hosts using circles of varying size.
Install the etherape package from the “Universe” repository (see Add Applications).
Press
→ → .Wireshark is a network traffic analyzer/sniffer that captures packets off the network in real time and displays their contents.
Install the wireshark package from the “Universe” repository (see Add Applications).
Press
→ →