[TriLUG] Running a Virtual Network on a Laptop

[Scott @ Home]

Hi Folks,

I'd like to be able to run the client-server software my company is 
developing on a standalone laptop system.  I believe the RedHat 7.2 
laptop has the resources necessary to run the server and client 
applications simultaneously.

I've tried running them with the network disconnected ("ifdown eth0") 
and the applications all hang.  I'd hoped that the loopback device (lo) 
would be sufficient for them to operate, but apparently there's 
something in the network service that becomes unavailable when I do 
this...  They'll run but hang as soon as they try to connect to the 
server app, which appears to be running fine.

I had someone tell me today that you could bring up a virtual network on 
Linux on a standalone machine and fool applications into thinking there 
was a running network.  He said you could do this through IP Aliasing.

The client-server applications I'm working with don't care whether their 
IP address is different, though.  They just have to be on a networked 
system.  I can make them all run on a single node on my LAN at home, for 
example.

I'll admit that I don't know all the ins and outs of network 
functionality, and that's part of what's holding me back.  Has anyone 
set up something like this on a laptop?  Any suggestions/recommendations?

Thanks,

Scott Chilcote