/etc/network/interfaces missing on Raspbian

Question

I am confused by Raspbian network configuration. I'd like to edit /etc/network/interfaces to setup the loopback interface to start automatically but I cannot find the configuration file.

root@raspberrypi:/# cat /etc/network/interfaces
cat: /etc/network/interfaces: No such file or directory

This is the content of /etc/network:

root@raspberrypi:/# ls -al /etc/network
total 24
drwxr-xr-x   6 root root 4096 Jun 25 20:08 .
drwxr-xr-x 102 root root 4096 Jun 28 13:52 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 4096 May  6 23:16 if-down.d
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 4096 May  6 22:38 if-post-down.d
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 4096 May  6 22:38 if-pre-up.d
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 4096 May  6 23:16 if-up.d
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root   12 May  6 22:18 run -> /run/network

It's worth nothing that my Raspberry Pi automatically connects to the ethernet network and picks up an IP address via DHCP, so there must be some other piece of configuration elsewhere I cannot find.

Where is network configuration located in Raspbian? From some googling I'd say it's on /etc/network/interfaces but what I see on my machine seems to suggest something different.

To add more information, this is my uname -a output:

mario@raspberrypi ~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 3.18.11+ #781 PREEMPT Tue Apr 21 18:02:18 BST 2015 armv6l GNU/Linux

and this is the output of ps -ef after I manually added /etc/network/interfaces with the configuration I needed, which is working fine.

UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root         1     0  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:07 init [2]
root         2     0  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [kthreadd]
root         3     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:03 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         5     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [kworker/0:0H]
root         7     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:07 [rcu_preempt]
root         8     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [rcu_sched]
root         9     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [rcu_bh]
root        10     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [khelper]
root        11     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [kdevtmpfs]
root        12     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [netns]
root        13     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [perf]
root        14     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [khungtaskd]
root        15     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [writeback]
root        16     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [crypto]
root        17     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [bioset]
root        18     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [kblockd]
root        19     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:47 [kworker/0:1]
root        20     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [rpciod]
root        21     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [kswapd0]
root        22     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [fsnotify_mark]
root        23     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [nfsiod]
root        29     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [kthrotld]
root        30     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [VCHIQ-0]
root        31     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [VCHIQr-0]
root        32     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [VCHIQs-0]
root        33     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [iscsi_eh]
root        34     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [dwc_otg]
root        35     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [DWC Notificatio]
root        37     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [VCHIQka-0]
root        38     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [deferwq]
root        40     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:01 [mmcqd/0]
root        42     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [jbd2/mmcblk0p2-]
root        43     2  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 [ext4-rsv-conver]
root       158     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 udevd --daemon
root       295   158  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 udevd --daemon
root       301   158  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 udevd --daemon
root      1547     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:02:05 /usr/sbin/ifplugd -i eth0 -q -f -u0 -d10 -w -I
root      1576     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:21 /usr/sbin/ifplugd -i lo -q -f -u0 -d10 -w -I
root      1633     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 dhclient -v -pf /run/dhclient.eth0.pid -lf /var/lib/dhcp/dhclient.eth0.leases eth0
root      2067     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c5
root      2133     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cron
102       2141     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
avahi     2178     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 avahi-daemon: running [raspberrypi.local]
avahi     2179  2178  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 avahi-daemon: chroot helper
tp       2218     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:27 /usr/sbin/ntpd -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g -u 104:107
root      2245     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
nobody    2269     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:03 /usr/sbin/thd --daemon --triggers /etc/triggerhappy/triggers.d/ --socket /var/run/thd.socket --pidfile /var/run/thd.pid --user nobody /dev/input/event*
root      2302     1  0 Jun28 tty1     00:00:00 /sbin/getty --noclear 38400 tty1
root      2303     1  0 Jun28 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
root      2304     1  0 Jun28 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
root      2305     1  0 Jun28 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
root      2306     1  0 Jun28 tty5     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
root      2307     1  0 Jun28 tty6     00:00:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
root      2308     1  0 Jun28 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100
root      2906     2  0 Jun29 ?        00:00:00 [kworker/u2:0]
root      3100     2  0 Jun29 ?        00:00:00 [kworker/0:0]
root      3578     2  0 17:17 ?        00:00:01 [kworker/u2:1]
mario     3628     1  3 20:50 ?        00:00:04 mosh-server new -s -c 8 -l LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 -l LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8
mario     3629  3628  1 20:50 pts/0    00:00:01 -bash
mario     3650  3629  0 20:51 pts/0    00:00:00 ps -ef

Can you please add the output from `uname -a` and `ps -ef` to your question. — ifermon, Jun 30 '15 at 17:30
I added it. Please note that the output of `ps -ef` has been taken after I manually added `/etc/network/interfaces` and everything is working as expected. I am still not sure about how everything could work earlier with that file missing — mariosangiorgio, Jun 30 '15 at 20:56
+1 same build as @mariosangiorgio and `interfaces` also missing — dmkc, Jul 01 '15 at 01:38
Were you using your Pi with headless or do you connect with a monitor and a keyboard? @mariosangiorgio — Tolga Varol, Jul 12 '15 at 19:08

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 25 '15 at 13:07

5

reinstall ifupdown package

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge ifupdown
sudo apt-get install ifupdown

edited Jul 25 '15 at 13:07

Phil B.

5,013
14
30

answered Jul 20 '15 at 00:59

eshizhan

159
1

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 20 '15 at 14:53

0

Try to use nano, in a terminal type:

sudo nano /etc/network/interface

That will list the setup info you are looking for.

edited Jul 20 '15 at 14:53

Greenonline

2,448
4
18
33

answered Jul 16 '15 at 19:44

Calvin McGill

9
1

2

You have hit one of my pet peeves, why oh why would you ever use sudo to run an editor as root when you have sudoedit? `sudoedit /etc/network/interface` or if you don't like the default editor `EDITOR=nano sudoedit /etc/network/interface` uses nano. – hildred Jul 17 '15 at 02:39
2

@hildred: I see your point - but it's not only the edit command you have to invoke as root. I prefer to have a clean and identical syntax all the time I invoke a command as root :-) – framp Sep 11 '15 at 20:34
@framp, I use sudoedit whenever editing any file as root except for kerberos keytabs, when invoked from debconf or sudo is not yet installed. I find that this results in great consistency. – hildred Sep 11 '15 at 21:11

/etc/network/interfaces missing on Raspbian

2 Answers2