I'm at a complete loss of how to make this work. The way I understand it there are three ways to set a default route when the machine boots. 1) Use DHCP. 2) From the Interfaces file. 3) A script in one of the if-xxxxx.d directorys. I have tried all these and just don't seem to be able to get it to work.
Firstly, DHCP works fine. Secondly, I can configure the box manually with route add. Thirdly, I have managed to kludge it with an init.d script but would really like to know why I can't get it to work the way it's supposed to. Interfaces method. Here's what I have in my /etc/network/interfaces file; ============== # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.42 netmask 225.225.225.0 gateway 192.168.0.1 ============== This doesn't work. When the machine boots it sets the static IP okay and the netmask but refuses to add the gateway. Lets assume everything up to the 'auto eth0' is correct. I've also tried; iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.42 netmask 225.225.225.0 network 192.168.0.0 braudcast 192.168.0.255 gateway 192.168.0.1 and... iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.42 netmask 225.225.225.0 up route add default gw 192.168.0.1 and... iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.42 netmask 225.225.225.0 gateway 192.168.0.1 and... iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.42 netmask 225.225.225.0 up route add default gw 192.168.0.1 None of the above has had any effect on the routing table. I've also tried adding an executable file to the if-up.d which contains the single line; route add default gw 192.168.0.1 This didn't work either. Now I'm not overly convinced that this is how the if-up.d directory is supposed to work but it's how I understood it after reading the file format on 'interfaces'. Also, this isn't the only box I've configured where I've run across this problem so I can't see it being specific to the machine I'm currently working. All the boxes have been installed from the basic netinstall disk downloaded at various time over the last couple of years. The latest was downloaded a couple of days ago. If anyone can offer some pointers as to where I'm going wrong I'd appreciate it. thx. -- np