Das Werkstatt

[PROBLEM]
For some strange reason, my Debian 7 (wheezy) installation wouldn't let me start the network interfaces using the official scripts.

Running "ifup eth0" simply replied:

RTNETLINK answers: File exists

Manually using "ifconfig eth0 inet <address> up" worked fine.
The IP-address was configured as "inet static" in /etc/network/interfaces.


[SOLUTION]
It seems that some part of the static configuration information got "stuck" somewhere, somehow.
Thanks to a post by user namend "civing" on unix.stackexchange.com, I did the following:
Where "ethx" must be replaced by the actual network interface you're having the problem with (e.g. "eth0").

Problem solved!

If the above command does not solve the issue, try removing duplicate default-gateway entries before running the above "flush" commands.
Thanks to: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/qu ... nning-ifup

Then perform the following steps for *all* affected interfaces.
("ethX" = eth0, eth1, eth2, etc...)

Take all interfaces down:
$ ifconfig ethX down

Flush stuck entries:
$ ip addr flush dev ethX

Bring interfaces back up with "ifup":
$ ifup ethX


Good luck!