Question when installing CentOS on virtual box

Question

I'm installing CentOS server on virtual box to test it out. I have little sysadmin and networking knowledge, so please elaborate as much as you can.

I'm following this tutorial, and I'm stuck on the following 2 steps (IP and DNS stuff). See the images, sorry couldn't insert images, the system wouldn't let me.

http://static.howtoforge.com/images/perfect_server_centos_5.5_x86_64_ispconfig3/10.png

http://static.howtoforge.com/images/perfect_server_centos_5.5_x86_64_ispconfig3/11.png

The tutorial uses IP 192.168.1.1 for the server. I checked my router and checked the next available IP address which was 192.168.1.51 I then entered 255.255.255.0 as the submask without knowing why.

My next (and main) problem now is the Hostname, Gateway, Primary DNS, and Secondary DNSin image 11:

http://static.howtoforge.com/images/perfect_server_centos_5.5_x86_64_ispconfig3/11.png

How do I decide what to put there? What if I put random IPs (as they appear to have done in this tutorial) and it pings that real IP or something similar.

Anyone can help me understand this better?

Answer 1

What to put there depends primarily on how you configure networking on VirtualBox. If you are using NAT (default), you should configure Centos to use DHCP. With other configurations (Bridged, Internal network, Host Only), you should set an IP address depending on the target network. Random addresses might be good for tutorials but not for real life, unless you don't mind connecting your Centos to something else.

Answer 2

If your host running VM is configured using DHCP, simplest solution would be let Centos use DHCP as well and use Bridged setting.