/etc/network/interfaces strange behaviour

[Jeremy Huntwork]

On Jun 20, 2008, at 2:37 PM, Mario Spinthiras wrote:
> When the machine came back up (power) , it got an address by DHCP
> though the settings in the interfaces file said static with all
> relevant addressing. This is not something new to me , I have dealt
> with Linux machines for almost 10 years now. I just cannot seem to
> understand why it did this. Checking the interfaces file again , the
> only thing I had seemed to forget is the broadcast 192.168.100.0
> directive which denotes the network number and nothing more.

Did you forget the 'auto' line in /etc/network/interfaces? Something  
like:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
...

The 'auto' tells /sbin/ifup to bring up this interface when the  
command 'ifup -a' is run in the bootscript. Otherwise, the interface  
configuration is skipped at boot and later, it seems, dhclient will by  
default request an address on the device, likely as part of a 'zero- 
configuration-required' principle for general end users.

Jeremy Huntwork
LightCube Solutions, LLC
site: http://www.lightcubesolutions.com
blog: http://lightcubesolutions.blogspot.com