Ignoring unknown interface wlan0=wlan0

Question

So here's a weird one. My wireless works fine if I configure it manually, but fails miserably when I try and configure it in /etc/network/interfaces. I think I've tracked it down to ifup not recognizing it as an actual device. Here's relevant infos:

root@cubieboard:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
iface default inet static
address 10.0.0.20
netmask 255.255.255.0



root@cubieboard:~# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 80:1f:02:9a:9c:c6
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:187 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

root@cubieboard:~# ifup wlan0
Ignoring unknown interface wlan0=wlan0.

Solution

Are you sure the interfaces file supports the use of the default keyword there? I don't see any mention of that in man interfaces - try replacing

iface default inet static

with

iface wlan0 inet static

Comments

[RandomInsano]

Blarg! You got it! Apparently I had some left-over cruft from some earlier troubleshooting. Changing 'default' to 'wlan0' works.