Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8) has deprecated the network scripts that have been used in previous RHEL releases. RHEL 8 now comes with new versions of the ifup and ifdown commands which call the nmcli tool. What does deprecated mean? From the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta Release notes:

Deprecated functionality continues to be supported until the end of life of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. Deprecated functionality will likely not be supported in future major releases of this product and is not recommended for new deployments. For the most recent list of deprecated functionality within a particular major release, refer to the latest version of release documentation.

So, there are a couple of different options depending on your use case.

Option 1 – Restore the old behaviour of network scripts

The old behaviour of the scripts can be reinstated as follows:

dnf install network-scripts

This command will populate the familiar tools that you are likely to have used in older releases:

# rpm -qpl network-scripts-10.0.1-1.el8.x86_64.rpm
/etc/rc.d/init.d/network
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-bnep
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-eth
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-ippp
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-ipv6
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-isdn
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-post
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-routes
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-sit
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-tunnel
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-aliases
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-bnep
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-eth
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-ippp
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-ipv6
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-isdn
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-plip
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-plusb
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-post
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-routes
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-sit
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-tunnel
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-wireless
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/init.ipv6-global
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions-ipv6
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/df
/usr/lib/.build-id/df/fce1383c3b10c1e20c4e4684d16a35c65cad1d
/usr/sbin/ifdown
/usr/sbin/ifup
/usr/sbin/usernetctl
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-bond-802.3ad
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-bond-activebackup-arpmon
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-bond-activebackup-miimon
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-bond-slave
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-bridge
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-bridge-port
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-eth-alias
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-eth-dhcp
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/ifcfg-vlan
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/examples/static-routes-ipv6
/usr/share/doc/network-scripts/sysconfig.txt
/usr/share/man/man8/ifdown.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/ifup.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/usernetctl.8.gz

Option 2 – Use Network Manager

Network Manager will still use the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* configuration files that you are used to, but instead of calling ‘ifup’ and ‘ifdown’, begin to familiarise yourself with the nmcli utility.

Further reading

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-configure-a-static-ip-address-on-rhel-8/

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/483354/rhel-8-deprecated-network-scripts