Static IP Address under Debian
According to Derek Molloy’s website it is easy to set a static IP under Debian: http://derekmolloy.ie/set-ip-address-to-be-static-on-the-beaglebone-black/
[Updated April 2015] To set the IP address to be static under Debian is quite straightforward. You can simply alter the /etc/network/interfaces configuration file to manually specify the address (e.g., 192.168.1.80 in this case), the network mask, and the network gateway. Use an editor, such as nano, to edit the /etc/network/interfaces file and For example, the settings for my network, which has a common configuration, are as follows: molloyd@beaglebone:~$ uname -a
Linux beaglebone 3.8.13-bone70 #1 SMP Fri Jan 23 02:15:42 UTC 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
molloyd@beaglebone:~$ cd /etc/network
molloyd@beaglebone:/etc/network$ sudo nano interfaces
[sudo] password for molloyd:
And, edit the interfaces file as follows: molloyd@beaglebone:/etc/network$ more interfaces
…
# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.80
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
…
# Ethernet/RNDIS gadget (g_ether)
iface usb0 inet static
address 192.168.7.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.7.0
gateway 192.168.7.1
…
The BBB then has a static IP address after reboot. The same procedure applies to other adapter entries, such as the wlan0 wireless Ethernet adapter. Do not pick an address that is within the DHCP pool or assigned to another device, or it will result in IP conflicts on the network. After you reboot the BeagleBone and connect via USB-over-Internet (or directly to the new static IP address) you can view your configuration as follows: molloyd@beaglebone:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr d0:5f:b8:fe:39:93
inet addr:192.168.1.80 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::d25f:b8ff:fefe:3993/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:672 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:130 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:107438 (104.9 KiB) TX bytes:15588 (15.2 KiB)
Interrupt:40
…