Re: moving wireless to static IP address (SOLVED)

[Haines Brown <haines@histomat.net>]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 05:24:45AM -0400, Haines Brown wrote:
> To avoid booting delay while DHCP tries to get an IP address, I decided
> to use a static address for the wlan0 interface.
> 
> I tried this:
> 
> auto wlan0
> iface wlan0 inet static
>   address 192.168.1.124
>   gateway 192.168.1.1
>   netmask 255.255.255.0
>   wireless-mode managed
>   wpa-ssid XXX
>   wap-psk XXX

I reply to my own question because I found it difficult to get a clear
answer by searching the web. Perhaps some other non-experts will
benefit.

The trick was to set up the interface correctly. The term "static" in
the second line is what is critical. My big mistake here was that I
needed to change wireless-mode from managed to ad-hoc. As long as the
mode is managed, wicd-gtk had to be started to gain access to the
network.  Also mandatory it seems is the address line. All online
discussions presume its presence. The netmask line is usually
recommended as well, but I didn't check to see if it is mandatory in my
case. In some cases, a channel line is apparently needed. Often the
gateway line is left out, but in my case it was mandatory (here I had
forgotten that my new router's address is 192.168.1.254).

It seems that what lines are needed depends to a degree on the
situation, which is probably why online discussion is a bit
inconsistent. Using a static address obviously suits a work station in a
fixed location. On my machine it greatly sped up boot time.

Haines Brown