CentOS 7 Restart Network Command

CentOS 7 introduces many changes in the way users handle and manage general Linux services. The same happened with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. And the big question here is: How to restart network service on CentOS? And how can I stop and start networking on CentOS or RHEL systems?

Today we will explore CentOS 7 Restart Network procedure, as well as stop and start networking service commands.

CentOS 7 and RHEL 7, the two most popular RedHat based distros in the web hosting industry, are using the new systemd. Systemd is a service manager, a new way to restart, stop and start services.

systemd replaces upstart as the default init system, and a few old-school sysadmins, webmasters and devs are a little bit confused about this new technology, however, don’t get mad… systemd is cool and is in fact a great init replacement.

Let’s see how to stop, start and restart networking on centos and RHEL linux.

The old Init system

In older versions of RHEL and CentOS, the init script were located at /etc/rc.d/init.d/ directory. This were simple scripts written in bash language, this scripts could be easily modified by the system adminstrator, as well as managed to start, stop or restart services on demand.

On the old init system to restart network on centos you only needed to run:

service network restart

And that was all.

The new systemd model

systemd uses service units to manage the linux services, and scripts are no longer located at /etc/rc.d/init.d/ directory. And the old ‘service network restart’ is no longer valid.

CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 Restart Network.Service

In order to restart network on CentOS 7 and RHEL 7, you will need to use the systemd service called ‘network.service’ or just ‘network’ for the short version.

E.g.01: CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 Network Service Status Output Example
E.g.01: CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 Network Service Status Output Example

 

CentOS 7 Restart Network Service using Systemctl Command

systemctl is one of the core functions of systemd, is a command that will let you control the state of systemd and it also allow system users to manage linux services running on the server.

In order to restart network on CentOS 7, you will need to run this command:

systemctl restart network.service

or

systemctl restart network

CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 Stop Network Service

To stop the network service on RHEL 7 and CentOS 7, you will need to use:

sudo systemctl stop network.service

Or the alterantive and shorter version:

sudo systemctl stop network

CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 Start Network Service

systemctl start network.service

Or

sudo systemctl start network

Chkconfig on CentOS / RHEL 7

Yes it is, it’s available only for compatibility purposes, but that means it will be deprecated on next CentOS and RHEL releases.

The chkconfig equivalent command using systemd is:

systemctl enable servicename
systemctl disable servicename

As you see, restarting networking on CentOS 7 and RHEL 7, and even the new chkconfig command replacement isn’t hard to learn at all, you just need to memorize the new restart, stop and start commands using systemctl. What do you think about the new CentOS 7 Restart Network procedure?

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About the Author: Santiago Borges

Experienced Sr. Linux SysAdmin and Web Technologist, passionate about building tools, automating processes, fixing server issues, troubleshooting, securing and optimizing high traffic websites.

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