Using the Terminal in Ubuntu Server

A graphical User Interface(GUI) makes it easy for us to navigate and do work especially in the Ubuntu desktop version. The Ubuntu server version is a lightweight copy of the deskop version, you do most of your work from the command line terminal making it a daunting task if you are not too familiar with the commands to use.

In this article, I will be going through the steps involved after installing a server version in a server in the office. From mounting a flash drive to statically assigning an address to the network interface is what will be shown.

Using lsblk to determine the location of the flash-drive after it is plugged into the usb port.

lsblk        

sdc-----sdc1 is the 64GB flash that is plugged in, take note that your result will not include the "part /media/flash_drive" since I mounted the drive earlier, it is showing the mount location.

Next, create a new directory in the specified location and mount the drive using the above location.

mkdir -p /media/flash_drive
mount /dev/sdc1 /media/flash_drive        

What I needed in the flash was a bash script to configure the network interface. Doing a ls-lah /media/flash_drive reveals the script file.

The content of the static_ip.sh script is what is show below and the comments show what is accomplished in each step.

#!/bin/bash

# Variables - Replace with your own values
INTERFACE="enp1s0"  # Network interface
STATIC_IP="192.168.32.23"  # Desired static IP address
GATEWAY="192.168.32.10"  # Default gateway
DNS1="8.8.8.8"  # Primary DNS
DNS2="4.4.4.4"  # Secondary DNS

# Backup the current Netplan configuration
NETPLAN_CONFIG="/etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml"
BACKUP_CONFIG="/etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml.bak"

echo "Backing up current Netplan configuration to $BACKUP_CONFIG"
cp $NETPLAN_CONFIG $BACKUP_CONFIG

# Create a new Netplan configuration
echo "Creating new Netplan configuration for static IP setup"

cat <<EOF > $NETPLAN_CONFIG
network:
  ethernets:
    $INTERFACE:
      dhcp4: no
      addresses:
        - $STATIC_IP/24
      gateway4: $GATEWAY
      nameservers:
        addresses:
          - $DNS1
          - $DNS2
  version: 2
EOF

# Apply the new Netplan configuration
echo "Applying new Netplan configuration"
netplan apply

echo "Static IP setup complete. Please check your network settings."        

Executing the script.

sh  /media/flash_drive/static_ip.sh    ##OR
bash  /media/flash_drive/static_ip.sh         

A successful execution of the script creates a file "/etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml" , enabling the the server to be connected to the network.

And there it is, we have successfully connected a machine to the network working purely in the terminal.