Enable USB Ethernet device in Linux

To enable and use ethernet over USB in Linux, we need to enable it first.

First of all we need to know the logical name of the USB device:

lshw -class network

Output might look like this:

 *-network:0 DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       bus info: usb@2:1
       logical name: enx00e04c07002e
       serial: 00:e0:4c:07:00:2e
       size: 1Gbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8152 driverversion=v1.10.11 duplex=full link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s

We need to check and look to the correct USB Ethernet interface and write down the logical name, in this case: enx00e04c07002e.

Then we have to generate a netplan:

sudo netplan generate

After that we need to edit the following file (Or similar) to add our USB Ethernet device:

vim /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml

We just need to add our interface (highlighted below):

# This is the network config written by 'subiquity'
network:
  ethernets:
    enp1s0:
      dhcp4: true
    enx207bd29c666e:
      dhcp4: true
  version: 2

Finally, we just need to apply the netplan and reboot the PC

sudo netplan apply && sudo reboot -h now

After reboot, we should see the IP address assigned to our PC via the new USB Ethernet device.

networking – USB Ethernet adapter refusing to work on Ubuntu Server – Ask Ubuntu: Enable USB Ethernet device in Linux