Using A Static IP Address On The IFL Boot Disk
When booting from the IFL Boot Disk, Linux will attempt to obtain an IP address automatically from a DHCP server on the network. If there is no DHCP server available, the process will time out in 20 seconds, and there will be no network connectivity available. If you are in a situation where there is no DHCP server available, and you need to use a static IP address instead, there are two ways to accomplish that.
One is to create a custom boot disk that will be configured to automatically use a specified static IP address on each boot. The other is to manually configure a static IP address from the running boot disk. The details of both methods are covered below:
1. Create a custom IFL Boot Disk - A custom IFL Boot Disk can be created where a static IP address will always be used, and no configuration will be needed each time you boot. A custom IFL Boot Disk for this purpose can be configured and created in two ways:
From an installed Linux distribution by following this tutorial.
From the running IFL Boot Disk by following this KB article.
Both methods above will bring you to the same menu (IFL Boot Media Settings). From that menu, select Network Interface Settings, and then Configure Interface. That will bring up a list of network interfaces to configure (eth0 through eth3 by default).
The eth0 through and eth3 items represent the first 4 wired NICs on the system. Note that these 4 interfaces will always be listed here, even if your system actually has less/more interfaces. 4 is just the default number of interfaces shown on the configuration menu (the default was 2 interfaces in IFL versions 2.79 and older). By default, all interfaces are configured for obtaining an IP address via DHCP.
To configure an interface to use a static IP address:
1. Select the interface to configure (typically you will want eth0)
2. Select IP Address Mode from the subsequent menu
3. Select static. You should now see 4 additional menu items listed on the Interface Configuration Menu (IP Address, Netmask, Gateway, and DNS Nameservers). Those items are used to configure the interface for a static IP address.
4. Configure at least the IP Address, Netmask, and Gateway parameters by selecting each item from the menu and entering the appropriate parameters. Note that DNS Nameservers are typically not required for most IFL Boot Disk tasks, so that is optional. The Help item on that menu provides some additional information.
5. When finished entering the interface parameters, exit the Interface Configuration Menu. Note that if you forget to specify a required parameter for static IP, it will list the items that you still need to configure, and won't let you exit the menu until you do configure them (or until you change it back to DHCP).
6. Once you get back to the Network Interface Settings Menu, you should now see the static IP address displayed for that interface (instead of "using dhcp").
7. Exit the Network Interface Settings menu, and continue with creating the custom boot media.
2. Manually assign a static IP address - This can be done from the running disk by selecting "Auxiliary Menu", then "Network Configuration" from the IFL (CUI) menu, or by selecting "Configure Network" from the right-click menu in IFL (GUI). From there, follow these steps to configure a static IP address:
1. Select the interface to configure (typically you will want eth0).
2. Select IP Address Mode.
3. Select static. You should now see 4 additional menu items listed on the Interface Configuration Menu (IP Address, Netmask, Gateway, and DNS Nameservers). Those items are used to configure the interface for a static IP address.
4. Configure at least the IP Address, Netmask, and Gateway parameters by selecting each item from the menu and entering the appropriate parameters. Note that DNS Nameservers are typically not required for most IFL Boot Disk tasks, so that is optional. The Help item on that menu provides some additional information.
5. Once all required parameters have been entered, select e.g. Start eth0 to bring up the interface. When you do this, if you have forgotten to specify a required parameter, it will list those items that you still need to configure.
6. The configuration screen should now show that the interface is UP (top line), and display the static IP address that you specified.
To further verify that you have network connectivity, you can attempt mounting a network share from the menu, or you can exit to a command prompt and try pinging another known computer on the network with the command 'ping <IP address>'. In addition, you can run the commands 'ifconfig' and 'route' without parameters to see the actual network status. Those commands should show results similar to below:
ifl:/tbu# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:9B:10:20
inet addr:192.168.2.20 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:59 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:5909 (5.7 KiB) TX bytes:5713 (5.5 KiB)
Interrupt:18 Base address:0x2000
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:31 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:31 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1774 (1.7 KiB) TX bytes:1774 (1.7 KiB)
ifl:/tbu# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.2.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
default 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0
The most important part of the 'ifconfig' output is that it shows an IP address assigned (inet addr) to eth0 on the 2nd line. The 'route' command output should have at least 2 lines, and one of them should be the 'default' line (the 2nd line above) specifying the gateway IP address (the default route).