Restarting your network interface

It's probably an abused method, but sometimes doing a restart is the quickest fix to many computer-related troubles! I myself am guilty of overusing the restart solution for most of my computer problems.

You can use the ifconfig command to bring down (disable) a network interface; you have to follow the network interface name with the down flag as follows:

ifconfig interface_name down

For example, I can bring down my Wi-Fi interface, wlan0, by running the following command:

root@myserver:~# ifconfig wlan0 down

You can use the up flag to bring up (enable) a network interface:

ifconfig interface_name up

For example, I can bring back up my Wi-Fi interface by running the following command:

root@myserver:~# ifconfig wlan0 up

You may also want to restart all your network interfaces at the same time. This can be done by restarting the NetworkManager service as follows:

root@myserver:~# systemctl restart NetworkManager

Now it's time to test your understanding...