I have a group of servers (debian linux boxes) and each gets a public IP off eth0. Lots of data is processed and passed between the servers. I'd like to create a subnet between the servers off each servers eth1 and link them all to a separate switch just for passing data between the servers.

When the servers are networked to the secondary switch on eth1, do I just need to manually assign IPs (from 172.16.0.1+) to each server? If so how exactly do I do this from the command line?