How to set ip address permanently

Question

This might sound a little strange, but I try to achieve to set up an ip address permanently in Ubuntu using the command line, but not an editor.

My idea is to provision servers and just type in the ip address once and the script takes care of this.

I just can't imagine there is nothing out there that writes

ifconfig eth1 10.1.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

into the /etc/network/interfaces file.

Sorry, are you saying that you understand how the interfaces file controls IP address assignations, but you want a command that both sets the address and updates that file in a single operation? — MadHatter, Dec 16, 2013 at 14:37
Exactly! I totally understand how to configure a network interface with an editor and have done this hundreds of times. Now I try to figure out how to do this from the command line permanently. — David, Dec 16, 2013 at 14:42
man echo would be a good place to start for figuring out how to insert text from a script into a file. — Jenny D, Dec 16, 2013 at 14:44
I'm afraid this wouldn't be the first place in UNIX that the way to do something now, and the way to ensure it's done in future, are separate (eg, chkconfig foo on doesn't also do service foo start; iptables -A foo -j bar doesn't also update /etc/sysconfig/iptables, and so on). — MadHatter, Dec 16, 2013 at 14:46
I am aware of doing that and able to do that, I thought there might be a tool out there maybe that takes care exactly of this. — David, Dec 16, 2013 at 14:46

score 6 · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-16 22:24:57Z

6

You can easily write a script which :

A much better idea is to use software configuration management : Tools like puppet have many advantages over home-made scripts.

answered Dec 16, 2013 at 14:45

user130370

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MadHatter · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-16 15:44:12Z

1

Will a redirect from the command line work?

echo -e "auto eth0\niface eth0\ninet static\naddress 10.1.1.1\nnetmask 255.255.255.0\n" > /etc/network/interfaces

MadHatter

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answered Dec 16, 2013 at 14:47

Lego

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Won't help much if eth0 already appears in that file.
– MadHatter
Dec 16, 2013 at 15:44
You are over-writing the /etc/network/interfaces, but you haven't included a stanza for the loopback adapter. This will almost certainly result in a very broken system.
– Zoredache
Dec 16, 2013 at 20:15

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2 Answers 2