ifdown cannot see my WiFi interface (kubuntu 16.04.3)

So I'm trying to a very simple command (ifdown) to bring down my WiFi interface but the command cannot see it (see below)

When I ran the ifdown command, I copy/paste the interface name from the results of the iwconfig so it's very unlikely I made a typo. I've done this several times and I get the same results.

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong? Thanks

user@mydesktop:~/$ ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:4915 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:4915 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:413384 (413.3 KB) TX bytes:413384 (413.3 KB)
wls1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 34:13:e8:63:3d:cd inet addr:192.168.1.11 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::19a:7204:6f13:7593/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:62390 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:43986 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:79936235 (79.9 MB) TX bytes:5382829 (5.3 MB)
chiyo@mydesktop:~/$ iwconfig
wls1 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"XXXXX" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 80:EA:96:F2:4A:E2 Bit Rate=57.8 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:on Link Quality=37/70 Signal level=-73 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:2 Missed beacon:0
lo no wireless extensions.
user@mydesktop:~/$ sudo ifdown wls1
ifdown: interface wls1 not configured

3 Answers

The command ifdown is reserved for interfaces which are configured in /etc/network/interfaces. Yours is configured in Network Manager instead. I suggest that you use:

sudo ifconfig wls1 down

Your interface is probably configured using Network Manager.

In this case you can disable it by e.g. (there are other ways).

nmcli radio wifi off

Then you can check the result by ifconfig.

You can use the iproute2 command:

sudo ip link set wls1 down

As montioned @chilli555 "ifdown is reserved for interfaces which are configured in /etc/network/interfaces"