I have installed Debian 8 and logged in as root. All I want to do is set a static IP, but every time I try, I get permssion denied!

The command I am using to get started is /etc/network/interfaces
The response I get is:
-bash: /etc/network/interfaces: Permission Denied

I thought that the root user had permission to do anything!

Please help!!!

Welcome to LQ!

See https://debian-handbook.info/browse/jessie

Thanks for the reply

I will read through the guide when I have more time, but I have been asked to set up this server at short notice by my company, and need to get this working asap. Am I missing something really obvious??

/etc/network/interfaces

This is a text file, but you are trying to execute it. Use an editor to edit it instead.

1 members found this post helpful.

All I'm trying to do is to set a static IP. If this isn't the right command, what command do I use?

The post above yours answers your question. Much in Linux is configured by editing/saving text files:

Yes, you're missing something, you're not qualified to do this -- hire somebody who knows what they're doing before you make an expensive mistake.

/etc/network/interfaces is a plain-text config file. You can't execute a config file. You're getting a permission denied error because it's not an executable file, and therefore can't be executed.

You need to OPEN it with something that can manipulate text files, like any text editor.

Gimme, gimme, gimme...
https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration

Ironically, it says:

Thank you for your replies. I have subsequently used 'nano' to achieve what I needed to.
Can I please point out that this is a newbie forum. I quite freely admit that I do not know what I am doing....yet.
I have come from using Cisco IOS and Windows command line environments (Shock! Horror! He said 'Windows' in a Linux forum!), and so am used to issuing commands, not editing text files, to configure the system.

I am not completely incompetent and the comment by '273' below is completely unnecessary and uncalled for. Please show some patience for us newbies!!

If you were a newbie asking for help with a home system or starting out on a course then, of course, I would show patience. However, somebody is paying you to do a job that you are obviously not qualified for and that is frightening. Hopefully you don't work for any company I have dealings with.

That isn't fair.

This could just as easily be an "on-the-job" training event by small companies. Frequently they will take some unit, give it to a worker bee and say "make it go".

So first, the worker bee has to learn what the unit can do...

That's fair enough but I see no evidence for that. The refusal to read the Debian documentation seems a bit off to me also.
I'd love to be a rocket scientist but common sense prevents me taking a job as one then seeking help on a forum.

It happens a lot until you get familar with the documentation. Unfortunately, that has a tendency to be a bit sparse, and scattered. Finding it also means having to search for definition of terms (specially since MS has a tendency to create their own definitions for standard terms... and that makes it HARDER to understand the standard definitions).

I learned by being given the 1973 paper on UNIX. It made a LOT of sense, and explained the heart of UNIX. Of course, I also learned it before MS did so much damage.

Things have gotten a LOT more complex now, and more hidden as the GUI takes over (granted, it is MUCH harder to document a GUI... but that doesn't excuse the lack).