How to restart the networking service?

Question

I tried to use

sudo service networking restart

and

sudo /etc/init.d/network restart

but they both crash the window manager and I can no longer use my keyboard for input into X.

when I use the /etc/init.d/ method it complains saying that I should use the service utility

e.g. service networking restart

but it crashes just the same.

Is there a GUI method of restarting networking?

Note that you might reanimate your keyboard, if you unplug and replug it - and it is hot pluggable, i.e. USB. — user unknown, Dec 19 '12 at 20:02
I also faced similar issue on Gnome 3 on Ubuntu 13.03. Screen disorted as top bar gone. Short keys not worked. As no menu/Activies shown I get no way to operate the system. Luckily console was opened already. So reboot command can be typed. — kuldeep.kamboj, Jul 22 '13 at 10:48
if you are looking for GUI method just open dash, type "Network" and select that. now press "On/Off" button to turn off and again click to on. your networking is restarted now. — αғsнιη, Sep 01 '14 at 18:28

score 338 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 18 '22 at 06:21

338

For Desktops

Try

sudo service network-manager restart

Or on recent Ubuntu versions:

sudo systemctl restart systemd-networkd

instead.

Ubuntu uses network-manager instead of the traditional Linux networking model. so you should restart the network-manager service instead of the network service. Or use ifup/down.

For Servers

Check this answer.

edited Jan 18 '22 at 06:21

Zanna

70,465

answered Dec 19 '12 at 19:54

jrg

60,611

10

hmm, strange that restarting just networking breaks the system. Does it happen to you too or is it just me? – waspinator Dec 19 '12 at 21:25
5

@waspinator - it happens to me too. (FYI.) – Josh M. Dec 29 '13 at 03:31
1

Autocomplete give networking, however , the right cmd is network-manager – Abdennour TOUMI Feb 02 '16 at 04:58
2

I wish I had tried Jorge's answer first. – Jonathan May 02 '17 at 15:26
12

As of 18.04.2 the answer is: systemctl restart systemd-networkd – Ejoso Feb 22 '19 at 02:41
On my Desktop system this answer gave me Failed to restart network-manager.service: Unit network-manager.service not found. I found the answer from @dagrha seems to work. – user643722 Dec 14 '20 at 11:08
1

As of 2024.01 the answer for Ubuntu is systemctl restart NetworkManager. – dxvargas Jan 12 '24 at 08:43

Jorge Castro · Answer 2 · 2016-10-18T22:13:15.150

123

For Servers

Restarting networking on a desktop machine will cause dbus and a bunch of service to stop and never be started again, usually leading to the whole system being unusable.

As Ubuntu does event based network bring up, there quite simply isn't a way to undo it all and redo it all, so a restart just isn't plain possible. The recommended way instead is to use ifdown and ifup on the interfaces you actually want to reconfigure:

sudo ifdown --exclude=lo -a && sudo ifup --exclude=lo -a

edited Oct 18 '16 at 22:13

answered Nov 13 '13 at 18:18

Jorge Castro

71,754

I'm getting ifup: failed to open lockfile /run/network/.ifstate.lock: Permission denied even on --force – Dee Nov 15 '13 at 11:52
1

@Jorge Castro: is this behavior going to be fixed, or is it broken by design? – waspinator Jul 19 '14 at 20:52
3

@waspinator the bug is marked fixed as of march of this year: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dbus/+bug/1072518 – Jorge Castro Jul 20 '14 at 04:03
4

what's the purpose of exclude=lo here? – Jeff Atwood Jan 30 '16 at 01:09
4

@JeffAtwood Loopback is used for X, dbus etc. Disabling it causes... issues. – SomeoneSomewhereSupportsMonica Jun 06 '16 at 21:44
3

Worked on Ubuntu Server 16.04.1. Ubuntu Server doesn't appear to include Network Manager, so http://askubuntu.com/a/230751/13756 doesn't work. – Derek Mahar Oct 18 '16 at 21:19
1

The ifdown --exclude=lo -a && ifup --exclude=lo -a command did not work for Ubuntu Server 14.04. The ifconfig eth0 down && ifconfig eth0 up command worked (https://askubuntu.com/a/230804/134723). – Eduardo Lucio Sep 10 '18 at 18:38
Thus save my life, since I run /etc/init.d/iptables restart on my VPS, which turns the host has no ip address even after reboot. This solves my problem. – van abel Oct 25 '18 at 14:02

score 45 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 31 '14 at 10:43

45

You could try

ifconfig eth0 down && ifconfig eth0 up

(or whatever your network interface is called) to restart the network.

edited Oct 31 '14 at 10:43

Community

1

answered Dec 19 '12 at 22:32

Neojames

1,704

3

... as far as I know, this doesn't update the interface's config according to /etc/network/interfaces ... which you might want – moritz Mar 22 '15 at 11:24
1

When using sudo: sudo ifconfig eth0 down && sudo ifconfig eth0 up. Otherwise if you are connected over ssh, you will have to reboot machine. – tarkeshwar Apr 23 '15 at 11:06
after trying ifup/ifdown and the reg service networking call, this finally worked for me – Jon B Nov 09 '15 at 04:15
I think it's better than the accepted answer because ifup doesn't handle bonded interfaces correctly, while ifconfig does – gilad905 Jun 05 '18 at 12:49

score 22 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 06 '14 at 20:29

22

ubuntu CLI: to restart the network service either

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

or

ifdown eth0
ifup eth0

edited Apr 06 '14 at 20:29

Javier Rivera

35,153

answered Apr 06 '14 at 19:16

redlakpa

255
2
2

3

This used to work for older kernels. Now it seems that do not work indeed. Prefered ifconfig eth0 down & ifconfig eth0 up – josircg Apr 03 '17 at 12:00
1

Beware not to use this command when connecting on remote machine. – Nikolay Kostov Jun 26 '17 at 09:05

score 18 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 11 '20 at 17:34

18

For ubuntu server 18.04, this works :

sudo systemctl restart systemd-networkd

answered Jan 11 '20 at 17:34

mozilla-firefox

311

4

To new LTS 20.04 the comand above work, thanks! – LandiLeite Jul 30 '20 at 03:43
I confirm! This works on 20.04! Thanks! – Mohammed Noureldin Aug 26 '21 at 19:18
Why oh why do they change the name every year. Sigh. That works on 20.04. – Moritz Friedrich Dec 20 '21 at 12:41

score 18 · Answer 6 · edited Apr 14 '16 at 06:55

18

These days the most direct way to restart network services is to use systemd controls, namely the commandline systemd control utility systemctl. This command will restart the NetworkManager:

sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.service

More information can be found here.

edited Apr 14 '16 at 06:55

muru

197,895
55
485
740

answered Apr 09 '16 at 22:10

dagrha

962

2

Try "systemctl restart networking.service" on server 16.04. – cloudsurfin Oct 30 '16 at 05:45
1

Don't need the ".service" part at the end. – Gringo Suave Oct 24 '18 at 17:34

score 9 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 14 '14 at 16:21

9

service network-manager restart doesn't work:

stop: Unknown job network-manager
start: Unknown job network-manager

The only thing that works is:

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 up

edited Mar 14 '14 at 16:21

Seth

58,122

answered Mar 14 '14 at 15:25

George

91
1
1

score 7 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 02 '14 at 12:36

7

sudo service network-manager restart

nor:

sudo service networking restart

Doesn't work on Ubuntu server 14.04

only:

sudo ifdown eth0:0
sudo ifup eth0:0

Works. Change eth0:0 to your interface.

answered Nov 02 '14 at 12:36

Alexander Kim

1,290

score 6 · Answer 9 · answered Dec 19 '12 at 19:52

6

Try using the indicator (top menu bar) to disable and then enable networking.

answered Dec 19 '12 at 19:52

jdthood

12,467

score 6 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 11:06

6

I've got the same issue. Its a known bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dbus/+bug/1102507

Using service network-manager restart works through

answered Jul 11 '13 at 11:06

Heidi

77
1
3

This is solution which works always on 16.04. In my experience Ubuntu 16.04 have issues to restart Wi-Fi after returning from hibernation. – danijelc Feb 04 '17 at 15:19

score 5 · Answer 11 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

5

I do not really think there's GUI method - by default at least.

I'm also not sure what do You mean by 'restarting networking service', but I feel that the following could help.

Before Ubuntu 16.04

sudo killall NetworkManager

It kills NetworkManger which automatically restarts after this. It doesn't break the system.

Ubuntu 16.04

sudo killall NetworkManager && sudo NetworkManager

Based on my personal experience, it seems that in Ubuntu 16.04 NetworkManager does not always restart by itself and it's better to start it manually.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

1

answered Jul 28 '14 at 19:07

kcpr

1,433

How is this better than sudo service network-manager restart and why? – Underverse Feb 04 '17 at 11:33
2

@Underverse, I believe that sudo service network-manager restart just didn't work for me when posting this answer. – kcpr Feb 05 '17 at 19:27

score 5 · Answer 12 · answered Sep 23 '15 at 07:38

If you can restart the network using the applet of NetworkManager, you do not need to restart NetworkManager itself (at least, most of the time).

In that case to restart all the connections, use this code from a shell or in a script:

nmcli nm enable false
sleep 5
nmcli nm enable true

Details can be found in the NetworkManagar command-line interface manual page.

Notice that these commands acts as the applet, so they do not need any additional privilege (no sudo or whatever).

score 4 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 24 '14 at 17:04

4

In ubuntu 14.04 they have a new "feature" that makes it impossible to restart. Force the interface down and up works.

  sudo ip link set eth0 down
  sudo ip link set eth0 up

answered Jul 24 '14 at 17:04

slingshot

41

1

This does not restart the network services, that is, no retry for DHCP addresses etc. – Samveen Aug 01 '14 at 19:01

score 2 · Answer 14 · answered Oct 26 '19 at 09:57

2

I am able to restart the network service on ubuntu with command.

 sudo systemctl restart network-manager

answered Oct 26 '19 at 09:57

Hiren Parghi

171

score 2 · Answer 15 · answered Apr 14 '15 at 13:48

2

if ubuntu 14.04 Desktop or Server, you can restart you network by:

sudo -i
( ifdown $(ifquery --list -X lo|xargs echo) && ifup $(ifquery --list -X lo|xargs echo) )&

answered Apr 14 '15 at 13:48

scue

37

I get a ifdown: interface eth0 not configured RTNETLINK answers: File exists Failed to bring up eth0. – wolfgang Sep 22 '15 at 15:58

score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Jul 11 '19 at 11:04

1

An alternative approach for the server (as of Ubuntu 18.04):

Install ifupdown2 package : apt install ifupdown2
Use service networking restart command

answered Jul 11 '19 at 11:04

MAQ

141

score 1 · Answer 17 · edited Apr 14 '16 at 06:55

1

rmano's answer is brilliant. Solves so many issues.

Remark to improve: In U15 I experience a different syntax for nmcli:

For analysis do:

nmcli networking connectivity

To stop service do:

nmcli networking off

and to restart do:

nmcli networking on

No sudo required. Thanks rmano!

edited Apr 14 '16 at 06:55

muru

197,895
55
485
740

answered Mar 13 '16 at 12:56

opinion_no9

975

score 1 · Answer 18 · edited Apr 14 '16 at 06:54

1

This uses Ubuntu's network-manager to disable, then enable eth0:

nmcli nm enable false eth0 && nmcli nm enable true eth0

If your connection has a different name, use it. You can learn your connections name by using the command:

nmcli c status

edited Apr 14 '16 at 06:54

muru

197,895
55
485
740

answered Apr 13 '16 at 22:08

Gabriel Curio

141

How to restart the networking service?

18 Answers18

For Desktops

For Servers

For Servers

Before Ubuntu 16.04

Ubuntu 16.04

Linked

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