how can one manually assign a permanent / static IP address with "ip addr add"?

ip ethernet ping portability

5,255

Your problem is not ip addr but some process (network manager?) which deletes the IP address. Unfortunately I am not aware of a possibility to determine which process made this access.

In case the disturbing process calls ip it should be possible with process accounting (man acct) but not if the configuration is made directly via the NETLINK socket.

You may kill or stop suspicious processes to find out which one does that.

5,255

Eric

I've liked coding since elementary school 😍

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Eric over 1 year
After an IP address is assigned to this network interface, with any of the the following commands:
```
ip addr add 10.0.0.0 dev eth1 valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
ip addr replace 10.0.0.0 dev eth1 valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
ip addr add 10.0.0.0 dev eth1
ip addr replace 10.0.0.0 dev eth1
```
I can verify with ip addr that the IP address for eth1 is set to 10.0.0.0/32 which is excellent (I think):
```
...
3: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 08:00:27:4d:1e:43 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.0.0.0/32 scope global eth1
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:fe4d:1e43/64 scope link tentative dadfailed 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
...
```
I begin to ping myself...the ping command hangs on the 31st ping:
```
username@computer:~$ ping 10.0.0.0
PING 10.0.0.0 (10.0.0.0) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 10.0.0.0: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.043 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.0: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.034 ms

...

64 bytes from 10.0.0.0: icmp_seq=30 ttl=64 time=0.038 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.0: icmp_seq=31 ttl=64 time=0.041 ms
```
Once the ping hangs, I can verify with ip addr that the IP address for eth1 is has disappeared:
```
...
3: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 08:00:27:4d:1e:43 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet6 fe80::a00:27ff:fe4d:1e43/64 scope link tentative dadfailed 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
...
```
How can one assign a static IP address to a network interface using ip(8), and not let it disappear? (disappearing after system restart is OK)

I am running Ubuntu 14.04.

From researching on the Internet about my problem, it seems that modifying the file /etc/network/interfaces is the solution, but this is undesirable, because this solution is not as portable as the ip(8) command.
- fpmurphy about 8 years
  
  There is no fully portable way of assigning a permanent IP address to an interface on UNIX-like operating systems other than writing a startup script
- BillThor about 8 years
  
  ip is a command to modify the current stack. It does not have a persistence mechanism. The persistence mechanisms, such as /etc/network/interfaces are distribution (network configuration tool) specific.
- BillThor about 8 years
  
  If you aren't using /etc/network/interfaces to configure your interfaces, it is likely Network Manager is managing the interface. It may be resetting the address on you. /etc/network/interfaces may be a better choice.