I am new to linux but not to networking... what makes me feel like an ID 10 T here is that i cannot seem to find where I can configure a static IP on my Linux RH 7.0 box! silly I know but where is this?! I keep hearing about ifconfig, which i have found in my /sbin directory. what now?

The actual reason for the problem.
My router has ip lease times set to 'forever'.... my windows server does in fact keep the same ip from the routers dhcp agent. however, despite this configuration in my router, my linux box keeps leasing a different ip from the specified range set in the router. I would like to have a steady ip as i am using SSH from a remote machine.

have a look at network config
type "redhat-config-network"

that might help u