Static IP

Static IP Configuration with Netplan on Ubuntu

Follow these steps to disable cloud-init network management, define a static IP for your VM, and apply the configuration.

1. Disable cloud-init network configuration

By default, cloud-init will overwrite /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml on each boot. Create a file to disable its network handling:

sudo tee /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg <<EOF
network: {config: disabled}
EOF

2. Create or edit your Netplan configuration

Edit the file /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml. Adjust the interface name (enp0s3), IP address, prefix, gateway and DNS as needed:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    enp0s3:
      dhcp4: no
      addresses:
        - 192.168.1.68/24
      nameservers:
        addresses: [8.8.8.8]
      routes:
        - to: default
          via: 192.168.1.1

3. Secure the Netplan file

Netplan requires its files to be unreadable by group/other. Set permissions to 600:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml

4. Generate and apply the new config

First, generate the backend files from your YAML without touching the live network and then apply changes:

sudo netplan generate
sudo netplan apply

If you see:

WARNING:root:Cannot call Open vSwitch: ovsdb-server.service is not running.

you can safely ignore it unless you want to use OVS.

6. Validate and reboot

Check that only your static IP is present:
```
 ip a show dev enp0s3
```
Reboot to confirm persistence:
```
 sudo reboot
```
After reboot, run ip a again — you should see only 192.168.1.68/24 on enp0s3.

Tip: If you ever need to revert, remove or rename /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml and delete /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg, then reboot.