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List of applications/Internet#Network managers
This page explains how to set up a wired connection to a network. If you need to set
up wireless networking see the Wireless network configuration page.
Contents
[hide]
1 Check the connection
2 Set the hostname
3 Device Driver
o 3.1 Check the status
o 3.2 Load the module
4 Network Interfaces
o 4.1 Device names
4.1.1 Get current device names
4.1.2 Change device name
o 4.2 Set device MTU and queue length
o 4.3 Enabling and disabling network interfaces
5 Configure the IP address
o 5.1 Dynamic IP address
5.1.1 systemd-networkd
5.1.2 dhcpcd
o 5.2 Static IP address
5.2.1 Manual assignment
5.2.2 Persistent configuration on boot using systemd
5.2.3 Calculating addresses
6 Load configuration
7 Additional settings
o 7.1 ifplugd for laptops
o 7.2 Bonding or LAG
o 7.3 IP address aliasing
7.3.1 Example
o 7.4 Change MAC/hardware address
o 7.5 Internet sharing
o 7.6 Router configuration
o 7.7 Local network hostname resolution
o 7.8 Promiscuous mode
8 Troubleshooting
o 8.1 Swapping computers on the cable modem
o 8.2 The TCP window scaling problem
8.2.1 How to diagnose the problem
8.2.2 Ways of fixing it
8.2.2.1 Bad
8.2.2.2 Good
8.2.2.3 Best
8.2.3 More about it
o 8.3 Realtek no link / WOL problem
8.3.1 Method 1: enable the NIC directly in Linux
8.3.2 Method 2: rollback/change Windows driver
8.3.3 Method 3: enable WOL in Windows driver
8.3.4 Method 4: newer Realtek Linux driver
8.3.5 Method 5: enable LAN Boot ROM in BIOS/CMOS
o 8.4 No interface with Atheros chipsets
o 8.5 Broadcom BCM57780
Check the connection
Note: If you receive an error like ping: icmp open socket: Operation not permitted when
executing ping, try to re-install the iputils package.
Many times, the basic installation procedure has created a working network configuration. To check if this
is so, use the following command:
Note: The -c 3 option calls it three times. See man ping for more information.
$ ping -c 3 www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (74.125.224.146) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 74.125.224.146: icmp_req=1 ttl=50 time=437 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.224.146: icmp_req=2 ttl=50 time=385 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.224.146: icmp_req=3 ttl=50 time=298 ms

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 1999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 298.107/373.642/437.202/57.415 ms
If it works, then you may only wish to personalize your settings from the options below.
If the previous command complains about unknown hosts, it means that your machine was unable to
resolve this domain name. It might be related to your service provider or your router/gateway. You can try
pinging a static IP address to prove that your machine has access to the Internet:
$ ping -c 3 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=1 ttl=53 time=52.9 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=2 ttl=53 time=72.5 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=3 ttl=53 time=70.6 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 52.975/65.375/72.543/8.803 ms
Note: 8.8.8.8 is a static address that is easy to remember. It is the address of Google's primary DNS
server, therefore it can be considered reliable, and is generally not blocked by content filtering systems
and proxies.
If you are able to ping 8.8.8.8 but not www.google.com, check your DNS configuration.
See resolv.conf for details.
Set the hostname
A hostname is a unique name created to identify a machine on a network: it is configured
in /etc/hostname. The file can contain the system's domain name, if any. To set the hostname, do:
# hostnamectl set-hostname myhostname
This will put myhostname into /etc/hostname.
See man 5 hostname and man 1 hostnamectl for details.
Add the same hostname to /etc/hosts:
/etc/hosts
#<ip-address> <hostname.domain.org> <hostname>
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost myhostname
::1 localhost.localdomain localhost
To set the hostname temporarily (until a reboot), use hostname from inetutils:
# hostname myhostname
Device Driver
Check the status
udev should detect your network interface card (see Wikipedia:Network_interface_controller) and
automatically load the necessary module at start up. Check the "Ethernet controller" entry (or similar) from
the lspci -v output. It should tell you which kernel module contains the driver for your network device.
For example:
$ lspci -v
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L1 Gigabit Ethernet
Adapter (rev b0)
...
Kernel driver in use: atl1
Kernel modules: atl1
Next, check that the driver was loaded via dmesg | grep module_name. For example:
$ dmesg | grep atl1
...
atl1 0000:02:00.0: eth0 link is up 100 Mbps full duplex
Skip the next section if the driver was loaded successfully. Otherwise, you will need to know which
module is needed for your particular model.
Load the module
Search in the Internet for the right module/driver for the chipset. Some common modules
are 8139too for cards with a Realtek chipset, or sis900 for cards with a SiS chipset. Once you know
which module to use, try to load it manually. If you get an error saying that the module was not found,
it's possible that the driver is not included in Arch kernel. You may search the AUR for the module name.
If udev is not detecting and loading the proper module automatically during bootup, see Kernel
modules#Loading.
Network Interfaces
Device names
For computers with multiple NICs, it is important to have fixed device names. Many configuration
problems are caused by interface name changing.
udev is responsible for which device gets which name. Systemd v197 introduced Predictable Network
Interface Names, which automatically assigns static names to network devices. Interfaces are now
prefixed with en (ethernet), wl (WLAN), or ww (WWAN) followed by an automatically generated identifier,
creating an entry such as enp0s25.
This behavior may be disabled by adding net.ifnames=0 in your kernel command line.
Tip: You can run ip link or ls /sys/class/net to list all available interfaces.
Note: When changing the interface naming scheme, do not forget to update all network-related
configuration files and custom systemd unit files to reflect the change. Specifically, if you have netctl
static profiles enabled, run netctl reenable profile to update the generated service file.
Get current device names
Current NIC names can be found via sysfs:
$ ls /sys/class/net
lo eth0 eth1 firewire0
Change device name
You can change the device name by defining the name manually with an udev-rule. For example:
/etc/udev/rules.d/10-network.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", ATTR{address}=="aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff",
NAME="net1"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", ATTR{address}=="ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa",
NAME="net0"
A couple of things to note:
To get the MAC address of each card, use this command: cat
/sys/class/net/device_name/address
Make sure to use the lower-case hex values in your udev rules. It doesn't like upper-case.
If the network card has a dynamic MAC, you can use DEVPATH, for example:
/etc/udev/rules.d/10-network.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DEVPATH=="/devices/platform/wemac.*", NAME="int"
Note: When choosing the static names it should be avoided to use names in the format of "ethX"
and "wlanX", because this may lead to race conditions between the kernel and udev during boot.
Instead, it is better to use interface names that are not used by the kernel as default,
e.g.: net0, net1, wifi0, wifi1. For further details please see thesystemd documentation.
Set device MTU and queue length
You can change the device MTU and queue length by defining manually with an udev-rule. For example:
/etc/udev/rules.d/10-network.rules
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNEL=="wl*", ATTR{mtu}="1480",
ATTR{tx_queue_len}="2000"
Enabling and disabling network interfaces
You can activate or deactivate network interfaces using:
# ip link set eth0 up
# ip link set eth0 down
To check the result:
$ ip link show dev eth0
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast
master br0 state UP mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
...
Configure the IP address
You have two options: a dynamically assigned address using DHCP, or an unchanging "static" address.
Dynamic IP address
systemd-networkd
An easy way to setup DHCP for simple requirements is to use systemd-networkd service provided by
systemd. See systemd-networkd#Basic DHCP network.
dhcpcd
dhcpcd is used as default client in Arch Linux to setup DHCP on the installation ISO. It is a more
powerful tool and allows to configure more DHCP client options. Seedhcpcd#Running on how to
activate it for an interface.
Static IP address
There are various reasons why you may wish to assign static IP addresses on your network. For instance,
one may gain a certain degree of predictability with unchanging addresses, or you may not have a DHCP
server available.
A static address can be configured with most networking tools standard in Arch Linux, for example
see netctl, systemd-networkd, dhcpcd.
The following describes how to configure a static IP address manually. You need:
Static IP address
Subnet mask
Broadcast address
Gateway's IP address
If you are running a private network, it is safe to use IP addresses in 192.168.*.* for your IP addresses,
with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a broadcast address of 192.168.*.255. The gateway is usually
192.168.*.1 or 192.168.*.254.
Warning: Make sure manually assigned IP addresses do not conflict with DHCP assigned ones. See this
forum thread
Tip: You may need to manually set the DNS servers, see resolv.conf for details.
Note: If you share your Internet connection from a Windows machine without a router, be sure to use
static IP addresses on both computers to avoid LAN problems.
Manual assignment
You can assign a static IP address in the console:
# ip addr add IP_address/subnet_mask broadcast broadcast_address dev
interface
For example:
# ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 broadcast 192.168.1.255 dev eth0
Note: The subnet mask was specified using CIDR notation.
For more options, see man ip.
Add your gateway IP address like so:
# ip route add default via default_gateway
For example:
# ip route add default via 192.168.1.1
If you get an error "No such process", it means you have to run ip link set dev eth0 up as root.
Persistent configuration on boot using systemd
First create a configuration file for the systemd service, replace interface with the proper network
interface name:
/etc/conf.d/net-conf-interface
address=192.168.1.2
netmask=24
broadcast=192.168.1.255
gateway=192.168.1.1
Create a network start script:
/usr/local/bin/net-up.sh
#!/bin/bash
ip link set dev "$1" up
ip addr add ${address}/${netmask} broadcast ${broadcast} dev "$1"

[[ -z ${gateway} ]] || {
ip route add default via ${gateway}
}
Network stop script:
/usr/local/bin/net-down.sh
#!/bin/bash
ip addr flush dev "$1"
ip route flush dev "$1"
ip link set dev "$1" down
Make both scripts executable:
# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/net-{up,down}.sh
systemd service file:
/etc/systemd/system/[email protected]
[Unit]
Description=Network connectivity (%i)
Wants=network.target
Before=network.target
BindsTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
EnvironmentFile=/etc/conf.d/net-conf-%i
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/net-up.sh %i
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/net-down.sh %i

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Enable and start the unit network@interface, passing your name of the interface.
Tip: If you prefer so, you can skip the scripts and add the commands as
additional ExecStart= and ExecStop= lines; see the wireless network example.
Calculating addresses
You can use ipcalc provided by the ipcalc package to calculate IP broadcast, network, netmask, and
host ranges for more advanced configurations. An example is using Ethernet over Firewire to connect a
Windows machine to Linux. To improve security and organization, both machines have their own network
with the netmask and broadcast configured accordingly.
Finding out the respective netmask and broadcast addresses is done with ipcalc, by specifying the IP
of the Linux NIC 10.66.66.1 and the number of hosts (here two):
$ ipcalc -nb 10.66.66.1 -s 1
Address: 10.66.66.1

Netmask: 255.255.255.252 = 30
Network: 10.66.66.0/30
HostMin: 10.66.66.1
HostMax: 10.66.66.2
Broadcast: 10.66.66.3
Hosts/Net: 2 Class A, Private Internet
Load configuration
To test your settings either reboot the computer or reload the relevant systemd services. Then try pinging
your gateway, DNS server, ISP provider and other Internet sites, in that order, to detect any connection
problems along the way, as in this example:
$ ping -c 3 www.google.com
Additional settings

This article or section is a candidate for merging with NetworkManager#Connect faster.
Notes: Those section contains mostly generally applicable tips (Discuss)

ifplugd for laptops
Tip: dhcpcd provides the same feature out of the box.
ifplugd in official repositories is a daemon which will automatically configure your Ethernet device
when a cable is plugged in and automatically unconfigure it if the cable is pulled. This is useful on laptops
with onboard network adapters, since it will only configure the interface when a cable is really connected.
Another use is when you just need to restart the network but do not want to restart the computer or do it
from the shell.
By default it is configured to work for the eth0 device. This and other settings like delays can be
configured in /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.conf.
Note: netctl package includes [email protected], otherwise you can
use [email protected] from ifplugd package. Use for example systemctl enable
[email protected].
Bonding or LAG
See netctl#Bonding.
IP address aliasing

This article or section needs expansion.
Reason: Manual method using ip should be added; then move current example using netctl into netctl. (Discuss)

IP aliasing is the process of adding more than one IP address to a network interface. With this, one node
on a network can have multiple connections to a network, each serving a different purpose. Typical uses
are virtual hosting of Web and FTP servers, or reorganizing servers without having to update any other
machines (this is especially useful for nameservers).
Example
You will need netctl from the official repositories.
Prepare the configuration:
/etc/netctl/mynetwork
Connection='ethernet'
Description='Five different addresses on the same NIC.'
Interface='eth0'
IP='static'
Address=('192.168.1.10' '192.168.178.11' '192.168.1.12' '192.168.1.13'
'192.168.1.14' '192.168.1.15')
Gateway='192.168.1.1'
DNS=('192.168.1.1')
Then simply execute:
$ netctl start mynetwork
Change MAC/hardware address
See MAC address spoofing.
Internet sharing
See Internet sharing.
Router configuration
See Router.
Local network hostname resolution
The pre-requisite is to #Set the hostname after which hostname resolution works on the local system
itself:
$ ping hostname
PING hostname (192.168.1.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from hostname (192.168.1.2): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.043 ms
To enable other machines to address the host by name, either a manual configuration of the
respective /etc/hosts files or a service to propagate/resolve the name is required.
When setting up a DNS server such as BIND or Unbound is overkill, manually editing
your /etc/hosts is too cumbersome, or when you want more flexibility with dynamic leaving and joining
of hosts to the network, it is possible to handle hostname resolution on your local network using zero-
configuration networking. There are two options available:
Samba provides hostname resolution via Microsoft's NetBIOS. It only requires installation
of samba and enabling of the nmbd.service service. Computers running Windows, OS X, or Linux
with nmbd running, will be able to find your machine.
Avahi provides hostname resolution via zeroconf, also known as Avahi or Bonjour. It requires
slightly more complex configuration than Samba: see Avahi#Hostname resolution for details.
Computers running OS X, or Linux with an Avahi daemon running, will be able to find your machine.
Windows does not have an built-in Avahi client or daemon.
Promiscuous mode
Toggling promiscuous mode will make a (wireless) NIC forward all traffic it receives to the OS for further
processing. This is opposite to "normal mode" where a NIC will drop frames it is not intended to receive. It
is most often used for advanced network troubleshooting and packet sniffing.
/etc/systemd/system/[email protected]
[Unit]
Description=Set %i interface in promiscuous mode
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ip link set dev %i promisc on
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
If you want to enable promiscuous mode on interface eth0 run:
# systemctl enable [email protected]
Troubleshooting
Swapping computers on the cable modem
Some cable ISPs (videotron for example) have the cable modem configured to recognize only one client
PC, by the MAC address of its network interface. Once the cable modem has learned the MAC address
of the first PC or equipment that talks to it, it will not respond to another MAC address in any way. Thus if
you swap one PC for another (or for a router), the new PC (or router) will not work with the cable modem,
because the new PC (or router) has a MAC address different from the old one. To reset the cable modem
so that it will recognise the new PC, you must power the cable modem off and on again. Once the cable
modem has rebooted and gone fully online again (indicator lights settled down), reboot the newly
connected PC so that it makes a DHCP request, or manually make it request a new DHCP lease.
If this method does not work, you will need to clone the MAC address of the original machine. See
also #Change MAC/hardware address.
The TCP window scaling problem
TCP packets contain a "window" value in their headers indicating how much data the other host may send
in return. This value is represented with only 16 bits, hence the window size is at most 64Kb. TCP
packets are cached for a while (they have to be reordered), and as memory is (or used to be) limited, one
host could easily run out of it.
Back in 1992, as more and more memory became available, RFC 1323 was written to improve the
situation: Window Scaling. The "window" value, provided in all packets, will be modified by a Scale Factor
defined once, at the very beginning of the connection. That 8-bit Scale Factor allows the Window to be up
to 32 times higher than the initial 64Kb.
It appears that some broken routers and firewalls on the Internet are rewriting the Scale Factor to 0 which
causes misunderstandings between hosts. The Linux kernel 2.6.17 introduced a new calculation scheme
generating higher Scale Factors, virtually making the aftermaths of the broken routers and firewalls more
visible.
The resulting connection is at best very slow or broken.
How to diagnose the problem
First of all, let's make it clear: this problem is odd. In some cases, you will not be able to use TCP
connections (HTTP, FTP, ...) at all and in others, you will be able to communicate with some hosts (very
few).
When you have this problem, the dmesg's output is OK, logs are clean and ip addr will report normal
status... and actually everything appears normal.
If you cannot browse any website, but you can ping some random hosts, chances are great that you're
experiencing this problem: ping uses ICMP and is not affected by TCP problems.
You can try to use Wireshark. You might see successful UDP and ICMP communications but
unsuccessful TCP communications (only to foreign hosts).
Ways of fixing it
Bad
To fix it the bad way, you can change the tcp_rmem value, on which Scale Factor calculation is based.
Although it should work for most hosts, it is not guaranteed, especially for very distant ones.
# echo "4096 87380 174760" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem
Good
Simply disable Window Scaling. Since Window Scaling is a nice TCP feature, it may be uncomfortable to
disable it, especially if you cannot fix the broken router. There are several ways to disable Window
Scaling, and it seems that the most bulletproof way (which will work with most kernels) is to add the
following line to /etc/sysctl.d/99-disable_window_scaling.conf(see also sysctl):
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 0
Best
This problem is caused by broken routers/firewalls, so let's change them. Some users have reported that
the broken router was their very own DSL router.
More about it
This section is based on the LWN article TCP window scaling and broken routers and a Kernel Trap
article: Window Scaling on the Internet.
There are also several relevant threads on the LKML.
Realtek no link / WOL problem
Users with Realtek 8168 8169 8101 8111(C) based NICs (cards / and on-board) may notice a problem
where the NIC seems to be disabled on boot and has no Link light. This can usually be found on a dual
boot system where Windows is also installed. It seems that using the offical Realtek drivers (dated
anything after May 2007) under Windows is the cause. These newer drivers disable the Wake-On-LAN
feature by disabling the NIC at Windows shutdown time, where it will remain disabled until the next time
Windows boots. You will be able to notice if this problem is affecting you if the Link light remains off until
Windows boots up; during Windows shutdown the Link light will switch off. Normal operation should be
that the link light is always on as long as the system is on, even during POST. This problem will also
affect other operating systems without newer drivers (eg. Live CDs). Here are a few fixes for this problem.
Method 1: enable the NIC directly in Linux
Get the ethernet NIC name from the output of:
$ ip a
Bring up the device as root using the NIC name:
# ip link set dev NIC_name up
For ex, if NIC_name is enp7s0:
# ip link set dev enp7s0 up
If it worked and the card is powered on, you should see state UP for the given interface in the output
of ip link.
Method 2: rollback/change Windows driver
You can roll back your Windows NIC driver to the Microsoft provided one (if available), or roll back/install
an official Realtek driver pre-dating May 2007 (may be on the CD that came with your hardware).
Method 3: enable WOL in Windows driver
Probably the best and the fastest fix is to change this setting in the Windows driver. This way it should be
fixed system-wide and not only under Arch (eg. live CDs, other operative systems). In Windows, under
Device Manager, find your Realtek network adapter and double-click it. Under the "Advanced" tab,
change "Wake-on-LAN after shutdown" to "Enable".
In Windows XP (example):
Right click my computer and choose "Properties"
--> "Hardware" tab
--> Device Manager
--> Network Adapters
--> "double click" Realtek ...
--> Advanced tab
--> Wake-On-Lan After Shutdown
--> Enable
Note: Newer Realtek Windows drivers (tested with Realtek 8111/8169 LAN Driver v5.708.1030.2008,
dated 2009/01/22, available from GIGABYTE) may refer to this option slightly differently, like Shutdown
Wake-On-LAN --> Enable. It seems that switching it to Disable has no effect (you will notice the Link
light still turns off upon Windows shutdown). One rather dirty workaround is to boot to Windows and just
reset the system (perform an ungraceful restart/shutdown) thus not giving the Windows driver a chance to
disable LAN. The Link light will remain on and the LAN adapter will remain accessible after POST - that is
until you boot back to Windows and shut it down properly again.
Method 4: newer Realtek Linux driver
Any newer driver for these Realtek cards can be found for Linux on the realtek site (untested but believed
to also solve the problem).
Method 5: enable LAN Boot ROM in BIOS/CMOS
It appears that setting Integrated Peripherals --> Onboard LAN Boot ROM --> Enabled in BIOS/CMOS
reactivates the Realtek LAN chip on system boot-up, despite the Windows driver disabling it on OS
shutdown.
Note: This was tested several times on a GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L motherboard, BIOS version F8
released on 2009/02/05.
No interface with Atheros chipsets
Users of some Atheros ethernet chips are reporting it does not work out-of-the-box (with installation
media of February 2014). The working solution for this is to install the packagebackports-
patched from AUR.
Broadcom BCM57780
This Broadcom chipset sometimes does not behave well unless you specify the order of the modules to
be loaded. The modules are broadcom and tg3, the former needing to be loaded first.
These steps should help if your computer has this chipset:
Find your NIC in lspci output:
$ lspci | grep Ethernet
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57780 Gigabit
Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)
If your wired networking is not functioning in some way or another, try unplugging your cable then
doing the following:
# modprobe -r tg3
# modprobe broadcom
# modprobe tg3
Plug you network cable in. If this solves your problems you can make this permanent by
adding broadcom and tg3 (in this order) to the MODULES array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:
MODULES=".. broadcom tg3 .."
Rebuild the initramfs:
# mkinitcpio -p linux
Alternatively, you can create an /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom.conf:
softdep tg3 pre: broadcom
Note: These methods may work for other chipsets, such as BCM57760.