I just replaced a Fedora Core 1 machine with a SuSE 9.3 machine for use as a small server and a backup workstation. (it's also my experimental machine to see if I can at long last fully divorce myself from windows)

On my network I'm using a Netgear WGR614v5 router as a DHCP server. In the router's dhcp server configuration I've reserved 192.168.1.5 for the SuSE 9.3 machine. When I reboot the machine dhcpcd requests and recieves the next availible IP on the network in spite of the routers IP reservation.

For example if the computer has 192.168.1.5 and I reboot it comes back up as 192.168.1.6. If I reboot again it comes up as 192.168.1.7. Id I force dhcpcd to release it's cached address with the -k option then rerequest the IP I once again get the reserved 192.168.1.5.

The funny thing is this machine has spent time running WinXP, and never had a problem requesting the right IP address on reboot before, so I'm inclinded to think that at least the router itself is functioning.

For what it's worth I'm running the latest version of firmware in the router (V1.0.7_1.0.6) and dhcpcd 1.3.22pl4-202.2 (installed via the built in system updater)

Any thoughts on how I can get this machine requesting the correct IP address on each reboot, or at least some places to check to see where it might be going wrong?

Have a look at the config files in /etc/sysconfig/network - there are some default confs as well as card specific ones. You can put any commands you like from any conf in the card-specific confs and they will override the defaults. They're all well-documented so you you should find what you want.

Personally I'd recommend using a static IP address if it's going to be a server.

Thanks I'll take a look at that...

The machine is esentially using a static address. My router is configured to reserve the .5 address for the MAC of my SuSE machine. If I set up my network that way I never have to worry about my linux machine having invalid or out of date DNS server information. Since I rely on the DNS server from my ISP you never know when those might change without warning.

Looking at the config file for DHCPCD I think the part that's messing me up is DHCLINET_RELEASE_BEFORE_QUIT="no". I have a feeling (though mind you I have no proof) that since it doesn't release on shutdown, the router thinks the IP is still in use and assigns the next availible IP to the machine rather than the reserved address.

I'll give it a tweek and a few reboots tonight when I have time and see how that works.

Well ... that didn't work after all. It really seems like dhcpcd doesn't really release it's IP, or at the very least really doesn't like the way that the netgear router reserves IP addresses. Very annoying. I really don't want to have to start using a static IP but I may break down and go that route