How can I restart a network interface?

Question

How can I restart a network interface? I have a vm that doesn't update its IP address correctly when switching between home and work. The vm runs Ubuntu server and uses a bridged network adapter.

Answer 1

Under Debian, you can tell an interface to get another DHCP lease with

dhclient -v {interface_name}

The -v means "verbose" and will show you the process in action.

@JustinY's answer will work (ifup and ifdown commands) if the interfaces are configured to pull addresses from DHCP. If they are configured as static, they'll just revert to their static IPs. dhclient will attempt to contact a DHCP server no matter what.

Answer 2

Sounds like you've got that interface configured using DHCP. If so, you want to kill the existing DHCP client, and restart it. For a lot of distros, you'd do this:

dhcpcd -k eth0
dhcpcd -d eth0

but not every distro used dhcpcd. I know some use dhclient, and doesn't Debian use pump?

Also, "eth0" may not constitute the correct interface name: do ifconfig -a to see what that VM has.

Answer 3

ifdown to turn if off and ifup to turn it back on. To restart eth0:

> ifdown eth0
> ifup eth0

You will need root privileges.

More details about ifup and ifdown.