What does "network" mean in the /etc/network/interfaces file?

Question

In Linux, to define aliases, we have to modify /etc/network/interfaces..

Something like this:

auto eth0:1
iface eth0:1 inet static
address 192.168.1.60
netmask 255.255.255.0
network x.x.x.x
broadcast x.x.x.x
gateway x.x.x.x

What does network mean here?

Answer 1

For your case, network is 192.168.1.0, which means your ip address is in the network range, 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.255

You can always get your network base address easily by doing ip & mask, where & is logical AND.