This is where you configure how your system is connected to the network.

Lines starting with # are ignored. Note that end-of-line comments are NOT supported, comments must be on a line of their own.

A line may be extended across multiple lines by making the last character a backslash.

The file consists of zero or more "iface", "auto", "allow-" and "source" stanzas. Here is an example:

auto lo eth0
allow-hotplug eth1
iface lo inet loopback
source /etc/network/interfaces.d/bridges
iface eth0 inet static


    address 192.168.1.1/24


    up flush-mail
iface eth1 inet dhcp

Lines beginning with the word "auto" are used to identify the physical interfaces to be brought up when ifup is run with the -a option. (This option is used by the system boot scripts.) Physical interface names should follow the word "auto" on the same line. There can be multiple "auto" stanzas.

Lines beginning with "allow-" are used to identify interfaces that should be brought up automatically by various subsystems. This may be done using a command such as "ifup --allow=hotplug eth0 eth1", which will only bring up eth0 or eth1 if it is listed in an "allow-hotplug" line. Note that "allow-auto" and "auto" are synonyms.

Lines beginning with "source" are used to include stanzas from other files, so configuration can be split into many files. The word "source" is followed by the path of the file to be sourced. Shell wildcards can be used. Currently only supports absolute path names.

iface is normally given a interface name as its first non-option argument.

The interface name is followed by the name of the address family that the interface uses. This will be "inet" for TCP/IP networking and inet6 for ipv6. Following that is the name of the method used to configure the interface.

ifupdown supports iface stanzas without a family or a method. This enables using the same stanza for inet and inet6 family addresses. And the method defaults to "static"

Additional interface options/attributes can be given on subsequent lines in the iface stanza. These options come from addon modules. see ifupdown-addons-interfaces(5) for these options.

example bridge interface with additional attributes listed in the ifupdown-addons-interfaces(5) man page:

auto br0
iface br0


    address 12.0.0.4/24


    address 2000:1000:1000:1000:3::5/128


    bridge-ports swp1 swp2 swp3


    bridge-stp on

ifupdown supports python-mako style templates in the interfaces file. See examples section for details.

See /usr/share/doc/ifupdown2/examples/ for interfaces(5) file examples and interfaces file generation scripts.

auto lo
iface lo


    address 192.168.2.0/24


    address 2001:dee:eeee:1::4/128
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet manual


    address 192.168.2.0/24


    address 2001:dee:eeee:1::4/128
# source files from a directory /etc/network/interfaces.d
source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*
# Using mako style templates
% for v in [11,12]:


    auto vlan${v}


    iface vlan${v} inet static


        address 10.20.${v}.3/24
% endfor

For additional syntax and examples see ifupdown-addons-interfaces(5)