Good Linux tool, Network Manager.
Network Manager is a GUI application powered by dbus for network configuration. Network Manager provides a user-friendly interface to set up the wired and wireless network interface.
Network Manager consists of a background daemon process running as root and a front-end applet application.
Install Network Manager with command,
$ sudo apt-get install network-manager network-manager-gnome
To utilize the Network Manager, for Debian users, the user has to be a member of netdev group. For other distribution users, the similar user privileges are required.
$ sudo usermod -a -G netdev paul
Verify the user group setting with
$ id paul uid=1000(paul) gid=1000(paul) groups=1000(paul),4(adm),24(cdrom),25(floppy),29(audio),44(video),46(plugdev),109(netdev),110(bluetooth),116(scanner)
By default, Network Manager only handles the interface not declared in /etc/network/interfaces.
Not declared interface means the interface is not described in the interface or the interface is disableed with a #NetworkMangaer# prefix.
For instance,
# The primary network interface allow-hotplug eth0 #NetworkManager#iface eth0 inet dhcp
To enable Network Manager to handle the interfaces in /etc/network/interfaces, the Network Manager's configuration file /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf should be updated as:
[main] plugins=ifupdown,keyfile [ifupdown] managed=true
Then restart network-manager service:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager restart