diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/system/interfaces_file.py b/lib/ansible/modules/system/interfaces_file.py
index 41cda40c6e..27b084ae58 100755
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/system/interfaces_file.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/system/interfaces_file.py
@@ -141,6 +141,7 @@ import re
 import tempfile
 
 from ansible.module_utils.basic import AnsibleModule
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_bytes
 
 
 def lineDict(line):
@@ -321,7 +322,7 @@ def write_changes(module, lines, dest):
 
     tmpfd, tmpfile = tempfile.mkstemp()
     f = os.fdopen(tmpfd, 'wb')
-    f.writelines(lines)
+    f.writelines(to_bytes(lines, errors='surrogate_or_strict'))
     f.close()
     module.atomic_move(tmpfile, os.path.realpath(dest))