In linux setting up a virtual interface is a piece of cake. You just need to issue two commands, and you are done.

first you need to assign an ip to the cirtual interface.

Then you set up a route for this interface so that your computer can see it.. With out the route command you will not be able to reach the new interface, but the rest of the network can. So this step is just to keep things tidy on the hosts side.

That's basically it. remember this interface will go away when you reboot, so read up on your distro and see how to add an interface on startup. I got lazy on my box and created /etc/virtuals/rc.virtuals which is just a script that sets up my virtual interfaces, and is called at the end of rc.local

-Fratm