Provided by: ifupdown_0.8.10ubuntu1.4_amd64 
NAME
ifup - bring a network interface up
ifdown - take a network interface down
ifquery - parse interface configuration
SYNOPSIS
ifup [-nv] [--no-act] [--verbose] [-i FILE|--interfaces=FILE] [--allow CLASS] -a|IFACE...
ifup -h|--help
ifup -V|--version
ifdown [-nv] [--no-act] [--verbose] [-i FILE|--interfaces=FILE] [--allow CLASS]
-a|IFACE...
ifquery [-nv] [--no-act] [--verbose] [-i FILE|--interfaces=FILE] [--allow CLASS]
-a|IFACE...
ifquery -l|--list [-nv] [--no-act] [--verbose] [-i FILE|--interfaces=FILE] [--allow CLASS]
-a|IFACE...
ifquery --state [IFACE...]
DESCRIPTION
The ifup and ifdown commands may be used to configure (or, respectively, deconfigure)
network interfaces based on interface definitions in the file /etc/network/interfaces.
ifquery command may be used to parse interfaces configuration.
OPTIONS
A summary of options is included below.
-a, --all
If given to ifup, affect all interfaces marked auto. Interfaces are brought up in
the order in which they are defined in /etc/network/interfaces. Combined with
--allow, acts on all interfaces of a specified class instead. If given to ifdown,
affect all defined interfaces. Interfaces are brought down in the order in which
they are currently listed in the state file. Only interfaces defined in
/etc/network/interfaces will be brought down.
--force
Force configuration or deconfiguration of the interface.
--ignore-errors
If any of the commands of scripts fails, continue.
-h, --help
Show summary of options.
--allow=CLASS
Only allow interfaces listed in an allow-CLASS line in /etc/network/interfaces to
be acted upon.
-i FILE, --interfaces=FILE
Read interface definitions from FILE instead of from /etc/network/interfaces.
-X PATTERN, --exclude=PATTERN
Exclude interfaces from the list of interfaces to operate on by the PATTERN.
PATTERN uses a usual shell glob syntax. If shell wildcards are not used, it must
match the exact interface name. This option may be specified multiple times
resulting in more than one pattern being excluded.
-o OPTION=VALUE
Set OPTION to VALUE as though it were in /etc/network/interfaces.
-n, --no-act
Don't configure any interfaces or run any "up" or "down" commands.
--no-mappings
Don't run any mappings. See interfaces(5) for more information about the mapping
feature.
--no-scripts
Don't run any scripts under /etc/network/if-*.d/
--no-loopback
Disable special handling of the loopback interface. By default, the loopback
interface (lo on Linux) is predefined internally as an auto interface, so it's
brought up on ifup -a automatically. In the case the loopback device is redefined
by user, the interface is configured just once anyway. If, however, another
interface is also defined as loopback, it's configured as usual. Specifying this
option disables this behaviour, so the loopback interface won't be configured
automatically.
-V, --version
Show copyright and version information.
-v, --verbose
Show commands as they are executed.
-l, --list
For ifquery, list all the interfaces which match the specified class. If no class
specified, prints all the interfaces listed as auto.
--state
For ifquery, dump the state of the interfaces. When no interfaces specified, lists
all interfaces brought up together with logical interfaces assigned to them and
exits with a status code indicating success. If one or more interfaces specified,
display state of these interfaces only; successful code is returned if all of
interfaces given as arguments are up. Otherwise, 0 is returned.
EXAMPLES
ifup -a
Bring up all the interfaces defined with auto in /etc/network/interfaces
ifup eth0
Bring up interface eth0
ifup eth0=home
Bring up interface eth0 as logical interface home
ifdown -a
Bring down all interfaces that are currently up.
ifquery -l
Print names of all interfaces specified with the auto keyword.
ifquery -l --allow=hotplug
Print names of all interfaces specified with the allow-hotplug keyword.
ifquery eth0
Display the interface options as specified in the ifupdown configuration. Each key-
value pair is printed out on individual line using ": " as separator.
NOTES
ifup, ifdown, and ifquery are actually the same program called by different names.
The program does not configure network interfaces directly; it runs low level utilities
such as ip to do its dirty work.
When invoked, ifdown checks if ifup is still running. In that case, SIGTERM is sent to
ifup.
During interface deconfiguration, ifdown ignores errors the same way as if --ignore-errors
was specified.
FILES
/etc/network/interfaces
definitions of network interfaces See interfaces(5) for more information.
/run/network/ifstate
current state of network interfaces
KNOWN BUGS/LIMITATIONS
The program keeps records of whether network interfaces are up or down. Under exceptional
circumstances these records can become inconsistent with the real states of the
interfaces. For example, an interface that was brought up using ifup and later
deconfigured using ifconfig will still be recorded as up. To fix this you can use the
--force option to force ifup or ifdown to run configuration or deconfiguration commands
despite what it considers the current state of the interface to be.
The file /run/network/ifstate must be writable for ifup or ifdown to work properly. If
that location is not writable (for example, because the root filesystem is mounted read-
only for system recovery) then /run/network/ifstate should be made a symbolic link to a
writable location. If that is not possible then you can use the --force option to run
configuration or deconfiguration commands without updating the file.
Note that the program does not run automatically: ifup alone does not bring up interfaces
that appear as a result of hardware being installed and ifdown alone does not bring down
interfaces that disappear as a result of hardware being removed. To automate the
configuration of network interfaces you need to install other packages such as udev(7) or
ifplugd(8).
AUTHOR
The ifupdown suite was written by Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au>.
SEE ALSO
interfaces(5), ip(8), ifconfig(8).