Q. How do I change ip address in Linux?

A. There are different ways to change IP address in Linux
(a) Command Line tools

(b) Modify configuration files

(c) Use GUI tools

Task: Display current IP address and setting for network interface called eth0

Use ifconfig command:
# ifconfig eth0
Output:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:30:48:5A:BF:46  
          inet addr:10.5.123.2  Bcast:10.5.123.63  Mask:255.255.255.192
          inet6 addr: fe80::230:48ff:fe5a:bf46/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:728204 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1097451 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:62774749 (59.8 MiB)  TX bytes:1584343634 (1.4 GiB)
          Interrupt:177 

Task: Change IP address

You can change ip address using ifconfig command itself. To set IP address 192.168.1.5, enter command:
# ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
# ifconfig eth0


To make permanent changes to IP address you need to edit configuration file according to your Linux distribution.

Change IP address under RedHat / CentOS / Fedora core Linux

=> Please read – Howto change and setup IP address in Redhat Linux

Change IP address under Debian / Ubuntu Linux

=> Please read – Howto change and setup IP address in Ubuntu / Debian based Linux distros