How to reload /etc/network/interfaces in Ubuntu or Debian

Last updated on October 6, 2020 by Dan Nanni

In Ubuntu or Debian desktop, Network Manager is the default network configuration tool, whereas Ubuntu server by default uses /etc/network/interfaces to configure network interfaces. Of course, even on desktop, you can disable Network Manager, and use /etc/network/interfaces instead to configure your networking.

For those of you who use /etc/network/interfaces to configure network interfaces, if you modify /etc/network/interfaces, you need to reload it so that the new configuration can take effect.

Here is how you can reload /etc/network/interfaces.

$ sudo service networking restart

Note: If Network Manager is installed and enabled on your system, you must not use /etc/network/interfaces to configure networking, and any change made in /etc/network/interfaces will be ignored by Network Manager. You need to use Network Manager to configure your network interfaces. In that case, after network settings are modified, you can restart Network manager as follows.

$ sudo service network-manager restart

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