How can I renew or release an IP in Linux?

Coming from a Microsoft operating system to Linux you may be surprised to see there is not an option for ifconfig to release and renew an IP address. Below are two different methods of how this can be done at the command line.

ifconfig eth0 down

Running the above command would take the eth0 interface (the first network card) down. Which is the same as releasing the IP address from that network card.

ifconfig eth0 up

After the interface is taken down, typing in the above command would bring that interface back up.

or

dhclient eth0

Renews the IP address assigned to it by DHCP.

Additional information

• See the ifconfig and dhclient command pages for further information about each of these commands.