Disable internet connection from terminal!

Question

The connect automatically option is allowed for my wired "Wired connection 1". Disconnecting the connection works when I do it from the panel's Network -> Disconnect menu. But when I do that with command:

nmcli con down id "Wired connection 1"

no sooner than it disconnects, the connection is back on.

How does Network -> Disconnect work? Could we do the same with nmcli without disabling the automatic connection?

Note:

1. nmcli con down id "Wired connection 1" works as with automatic connection disabled (but again that's not an option),
2. sudo is not pereferred (wouldn't be good to implement in a script!).

Answer 1

The following command works for me like a charm if I want to disable any internet connection from terminal:

nmcli nm enable false

To enable it again:

nmcli nm enable true

---

Another way very close to your quest is to use:

nmcli dev disconnect iface eth0

To enable eth0 again you need to type:

nmcli -p con up id "<connection name>" iface eth0

Example for connection named "Wired connection 1":

nmcli -p con up id "Wired connection 1" iface eth0

Change eth0 with your appropriate wired device name. This will prevent any further connections without user/manual intervention as man nmci says:

          disconnect iface <iface> [--nowait] [--timeout <timeout>]
                 Disconnect a device and prevent the device from automati‐
                 cally activating further connections without user/manual
                 intervention.

                 Available options are:

                 --nowait     – exit immediately without waiting for com‐
                              mand completion

                 --timeout    – how long to wait for command completion
                              (default is 10 s)

Please read man nmcli for more info.