BBB static IP address

General Discussion
1

I’ve just resurrected a Beaglebone Black and set it to have a static IP address by editing /etc/network/interfaces

using debian 7.5

I am curious because when I boot the beaglebone it loads with the IP address I have specified in the interfaces file…all is good.

But

If I reboot the router the beaglebone appears in the network with an IP address assigned by the router.

I have googled far and wide to understand this behaviour, but in vain. Has anybody got any suggestions?

2

What is the DHCP lease time set to in your router, or whatever is dishing out IP addresses ?

3

1440 minutes

4

So that is a day.

When you checked your router and saw the address, was it within a day of setting the static address?
It is possible that your router was showing the address as it still had a valid lease.

Does it still show up ? If so can you release it, and try rebooting the BB

It is also possible that u-boot may be grabbing an IP address, but that would depend on how it was configured.

5

good point… I will wait until 24 hours has passes since the dhcp address was granted and reboot the router…

thanks

6

I’ve never had to ‘wait’, but then, I’m not router expert. On the other hand, the latest images use connman. Read here, go down to Set the BBB to use a static ip.

7

It is not a matter of waiting. It is more a case of confusion as to why the router was showing the old DHCP address. I think.

8

Hi Benedict,
I guess the easiest way to confirm is to see if you can ping the BBB at that IP. I broke it by trying to edit interfaces. I did have to put the original file back to get it to work with connman.
Best, Dan.

9

thanks guys
the lakeweb link looks like good info but…I have an early 2gb BBB and it’s running debian 7.5.

I have waited a good long time(nearly 2 days) and just rebooted the router. The BBB comes up with the dhcp address that the router first assigned many days ago…and the same address it always assigns when I reboot the router.

I pinged the static address after router reboot and got no response. I pinged the address that showed on the network(the same address that the router first assigned bu dhcp and the address that appears every time I reboot the router) and got 3ms.

10

Look like you are not correctly setting the static address on the BBB then.

if you want a static address you can probably assign a fixed IP address based on MAC address from your DHCP server.

11

I would recommend updating that image. I run the “console” image on the 2GB BBB RevB. https://debian.beagleboard.org/images/bone-debian-10.3-console-armhf-2020-04-06-1gb.img.xz

It fits with a little room to spare. This image also updates u-boot when you flash to the eMMC, which is a nice perk since there are many improvements since that 2GB debian 7.5 image was made!

You will note that on the later BBB images network configuration is done by conman, so /etc/network/interfaces is the wrong file to edit. (I don’t recall if conman was in the 7.5 image.)

If you want instructions on how to revert to /etc/network/interfaces from conman or how to boot larger images on the RevB using NFS, see this article I wrote about it:

12

many thanks for that brad-tot, I’ll get on it…

13

Hi Brad-tot

The image in the link you posted boots, but it wont flash. Am I missing something? or do I have to clear the emmc and always boot from SD card.

or

is there another flash image for this version?

apologies…I may have answered my own question
I’ve edited uEnv and image seems to have flashed