HowTo Bind A Range Of IP’s in Debian / Ubuntu Linux

by nixCraft on May 14, 2007 · 11 comments· last updated at April 2, 2012

I've recently installed Debian Linux 4.0 on my server and Ubuntu Linux 7.04 on Laptop. I would love to have a multiple IP address that I can use for verity of purposes. I would like to bind 4 IP's to the 'eth0' device or NIC. How do I achieve this?

Let us assume that your eth0 IP address is 192.168.1.1. You need to create alias or binding using eth0:0, eth0:1...eth0:N devices. You need to add range of IP's in /etc/network/interfaces config file under Debian/Ubuntu Linux. First make a backup of existing file:
# cp /etc/network/interfaces /root/working.interfaces
Now open file using a text editor such as vi / vim, enter:
# vi /etc/network/interfaces
OR
$ sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces
Append or modify file as follows:

auto eth0
auto eth0:0
auto eth0:1
 
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254
 
iface eth0:0 inet static
address 192.168.1.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254
 
iface eth0:1 inet static
address 192.168.1.3
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254
 
# add rest of alias / binds below

A Note About Configuration Using ip Command

The ifconfig command is being phased out and being replaced by the ip command. The newer ip command does not use the same concept of aliases or virtual interfaces and instead treats additional addresses as first class objects. The newer way to configure multiple addresses on one interface is to use the up and down mechanism to call ip at the correct times to add and remove these additional IP addresses. Sample This /etc/network/interfaces file which assigns two IP addresses to eth0 and assigns labels to them:

 
auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.1.254
    up   ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 dev eth0 label eth0:0
    down ip addr del 192.168.1.2/24 dev eth0 label eth0:0
    up   ip addr add 192.168.1.3/24 dev eth0 label eth0:1
    down ip addr del 192.168.1.3/24 dev eth0 label eth0:1

Save and close the file. Restart networking service under Debian / Ubuntu Linux, enter:
# /etc/init.d/networking restart
OR
$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

How Do I Verify New Settings?

To verify your new settings, type:
# ifconfig -a
OR
# ip addr show eth0
Sample outputs:

2: eth0:  mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether b8:ac:6f:65:31:e5 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.1.1/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global eth0
    inet 192.168.1.2/24 scope global secondary eth0:0
    inet 192.168.1.3/24 scope global secondary eth0:1
    inet6 fe80::baac:6fff:fe65:31e5/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Page last updated at 5:30 PM, April 2, 2012.

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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Stephen G May 30, 2007 at 2:56 am

Did you possibly make a type for the 192.168.1.3 assignment?

shows:
iface eth0:0 inet static
address 192.168.1.3
netmask 255.255.255.248
gateway 192.168.1.254

should be (?):
iface eth0:1 inet static
address 192.168.1.3
netmask 255.255.255.248
gateway 192.168.1.254

2 Darkall January 31, 2008 at 4:09 am

Yes, he meant to type iface eth0:1 instead of iface eth0:0 :) He typo’d

3 redsonic June 9, 2008 at 9:38 am

Hi,

Thank you a lot for this very nice howto.

It was very helpful

4 Clint November 18, 2008 at 4:54 am

This posting title is a bit misleading, it doesn’t tell you how to setup a range, it tells you how to setup multiple ip addresses individually.

Is there any way to say bind all ip’s in a 192.168.1.0/24 range, starting with eth0:0 or some such? Something without having to have 4 lines per ip address.

In RedHat its a special file called ifcfg-eth0-range0 and has some special parameters but allows you to bind hundreds of ip addresses with just a few lines

5 vivek November 18, 2008 at 7:30 am

Clint,

title is correct and this is the only way to add ranges. Redhat/centos has special file for this purpose. However, you can write a shell script to add IP in ranges. Try something as follows from /etc/rc.local:

for ip in {1..254}; do echo ifconfig eth0:${ip} 192.168.1.$ip netmask 255.255.255.248 up; done

HTH

6 Joseph Bloe December 15, 2008 at 1:29 am

Actually, what you have described is how to create a virtual interface on a NIC. A side effect of doing this is an IP alias is also automatically created. These are not the same things.

As an aside, I have several servers with several aliased IP addresses on the NICs. There are NO virtual interfaces (e.g. eth0.2, eth1:3, etc).

7 Gagan Brahmi May 16, 2009 at 1:26 pm

Hey Vivek,

I have a related question. Do you know what is the maximum limit of IP addresses a single NIC can have in linux?

8 Douglas June 12, 2011 at 8:40 pm: Not sure, but I just tried to add 5000 ipv6 ips to one interface, but got out of memory message after 4091 IPs
Reply

9 Jesse August 11, 2009 at 1:15 am

Umm… yeah, so why is the netmask 255.255.255.248 when the client IPs are .1-3 and the gateway is at .254? Would you not need a netmask of 255.255.255.0 to keep the client IP’s and gateway in the same subnet??

10 conan June 2, 2010 at 5:04 pm

it seems that we can bind these ip to loopback, such as lo:1 lo:2 ?

11 Patricia April 18, 2012 at 6:44 am

Juan, OHARA You’re both correct, my apsiogloe, it was a copypasta mistake on my part.Way to lazy to write 2 VHOST definitions so I just copy-pasted them and forgot to change the IP.

HowTo Bind A Range Of IP’s in Debian / Ubuntu Linux

A Note About Configuration Using ip Command

How Do I Verify New Settings?

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