Linux: Setting Static or Dynamic IP Address

Virtually no computer used today would not have an IP address of some kind assigned to it. Here’s how to assign IP address settings in various Linux OS flavors. See the following sections for commands to show the current IP settings:

Command: Show IP Address
ip a
ip a
ip a
ip a

Command: Show Default Gateway
ip r
ip r
ip r
ip r

Command: Show DNS Server
drill <hostname>
drill <hostname>
drill <hostname>
drill <hostname>

Command: Ping
ping <ip address|hostname>
ping <ip address|hostname>
ping <ip address|hostname>
ping <ip address|hostname>

Direct Configuration File Method

The various Linux OS families have different ways to set their IP address (on the command line), typically through a configuration file and a restart of a system service.

vi /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/<IFACE_NAME>.nmconnection
systemctl restart NetworkManager

vi /etc/network/interfaces
systemctl restart networking

vi /etc/network/interfaces
vi /etc/resolv.conf
/etc/init.d/networking restart

vi /etc/systemd/network/10-net0.link
> [Match]
> PermanentMACAddress=<interface MAC address>
>
> [Link]
> Name=net0
>
> [Network]
> Address=<address>
> Gateway=<gateway>
> DNS=<dns1>
> DNS=<dns2>

Ubuntu

In this case, like many others, even though Ubuntu is a Debian derrivative it doesn’t follow Debian’s example, and has to do it it’s own ‘special’ way:

vi /etc/netplan/<interface>_config.yaml
netplan apply

NetworkManager Method

Many distributions support various network managers - command line tools to consolidate and simplify the commands to manage IP address settings. Several distributions support NetworkManager and I’ve made notes here to show how to install NetworkManager and the commands to set static IP values

dnf -y install NetworkManager
systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
nmcli connection modify <iface name> ipv4.gateway <gateway ip>
nmcli connection modify <iface name> ipv4.address <ip address>
nmcli connection modify <iface name> ipv4.dns <dns ip address>
nmcli connection up <iface name>

apt-get install network-manager
systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
nmtui

apk add networkmanager
rc-service networkmanager start
rc-update add networkmanager default
adduser <your username> plugdev #you will need to relog to apply the new group membership
nmtui

pacman -Syu networkmanager
systemctl --now enable NetworkManager.service
nmtui