Static IP address forgotten in Sid

propofol · 06-09-2009, 01:30 PM

I recently did a full upgrade of debian sid and found that the static ip I have assigned in /etc/network/interfaces is overridden during the boot process by dhclient. Looking at /var/log/daemon.log my original ip is assigned and then later on there is a message from dhclient requesting a new address.

Why does dhclient get invoked and how do I stop it from reassigning a new ip address?

Regards,
Stefan

pliqui · 06-09-2009, 01:52 PM

Do a

Quote:

egrep -v '(^$|^#)' /etc/network/interfaces

to see what you have in your interfaces file

farslayer · 06-09-2009, 02:02 PM

or a simple (less typing)

cat /etc/network/interfaces

propofol · 06-09-2009, 09:26 PM

My /etc/network/interfaces file looks like this:

Code:

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  name Ethernet LAN card
  address 192.168.2.27
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  broadcast 192.168.2.255
  network 192.168.2.0
  gateway 192.168.2.5

During boot-up this apears in the /var/log/daemon.log file:

Code:

........
Jun  9 09:20:49 gx270d dhclient: DHCPOFFER from 192.168.2.5
Jun  9 09:20:49 gx270d dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jun  9 09:20:49 gx270d dhclient: DHCPACK from 192.168.2.5
Jun  9 09:20:49 gx270d dhclient: bound to 192.168.2.208 -- renewal in 35756 seconds.
...........

I am not sure why dhclient gets invoked in the first place.

Regards,
Stefan

farslayer · 06-10-2009, 08:39 AM

I would alter your interfaces file.. as follows

Code:

# The primary network interface
# name Ethernet LAN card
# allow-hotplug eth0
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address 192.168.2.27
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  broadcast 192.168.2.255
  network 192.168.2.0
  gateway 192.168.2.5

You do not need both allow-hotplug and the auto statement, choose one or the other. I've had better luck using the auto statement for fixed interfaces.

name is not a valid option in the interfaces file as far as I can tell, either remove that line or comment it out.

propofol · 06-10-2009, 10:05 AM

Thanks for the reply,

I have changed my interfaces file however the same thing still happens during the boot process: the correct static address is assigned initially & then dhclient gets invoked and reassigns a dynamic IP address to eth0.

Regards,
Stefan

farslayer · 06-10-2009, 02:26 PM

Maybe this is a bug that has popped into sid...

propofol · 06-11-2009, 01:13 AM

Thanks for the advice farslayer - I have finally found the culprit.

After much googling it seems that network-manager has caused similar problems. Except that I have already uninstalled it. It turned out that the problem was that I have recently tried out e17. This installed a network manager: exalt-daemon. A simple

Code:

update-rc.d -f exalt-daemon remove

fixed my problem. No more dhclient calls.

Regards,
Stefan

farslayer · 06-11-2009, 10:37 AM

Glad you tracked down the culprit, Ii was unaware of that option (exalt)..

I still don't believe it should have ignored the Interfaces file like it was doing, that's just rude application behavior imho.

If forced to have a network management daemon I prefer wicd..