Debain IP Configuration

The IP configurations on the Debian distribution of the Linux operating system are stored in the file /etc/network/interfaces. Below is a sample that will configure the device eth0 to have an IP address of 192.168.1.42 on a class C network with 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway.

/etc/network/interfaces:

# /etc/network/interfaces – configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

# the loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static

address 192.168.1.42
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1

In order to assign multiple IP addresses on the same interface (eth0), add the following stanza (incrementing the subinterface name as necessary). The below example will add three more IP addresses to the same interface:

auto eth0:0
iface eth0:0 inet static

address 192.168.1.41
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255

auto eth0:1
iface eth0:1 inet static

address 192.168.1.44
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255

auto eth0:2
iface eth0:2 inet static

address 192.168.1.45
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255

To update your system’s IP configuration after making changes to /etc/network/interface, execute

# /etc/init.d/networking restart

Make sure to double-check your configuration as this could leave your server unreachable.