The New Hotness

Having configured ssh on the Raspberry Pi for public keys, the next step is to cut the cord by configuring the USB WiFi dongle to automagically come up with a static IP.

[Update: As of 2017, set a static IP by tweaking /etc/dhcpcd.conf instead. Search the blog for that to find recent descriptions. ]

Make /etc/network/interfaces look like this:

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

#iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet static
iface eth0 inet manual
 address 192.168.1.209
 gateway 192.168.1.1
 netmask 255.255.255.0
 network 192.168.1.0
 broadcast 192.168.1.255

allow-hotplug wlan0

#iface wlan0 inet manual
iface wlan0 inet static
 address 192.168.1.9
 gateway 192.168.1.1
 netmask 255.255.255.0
 network 192.168.1.0
 broadcast 192.168.1.255

#wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

iface default inet dhcp

Then set up /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf thusly:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
	ssid="whatever it might be"
	psk="choose your own password"
}

You want different IP addresses for the eth0 and wlan0 devices, because you never know when you’ll be forced to use them at the same time.

Using wpa-conf rather than wpa-roam prevents the machinery from automagically doing things when you’re not watching.

The router can hand out IP addresses based on MACs, but that means bottling up all that configuration in a single device that might go toes up. Forcibly configuring each device to a static IP adds a bit of resilience to the network, right up to the point where you must change all of them at once.

Alas, the router seemed to lose track of the Pi after a day. Pinging from my desktop box reported Destination Host Unreachable, even though signing on through the USB keyboard showed the USB WiFi link (a netis WF2123) was still up. Signing on to the router and refreshing the DHCP list (even though the RPi has a static IP) knocked things loose: suddenly the RPi became pingable.

It seems the WiFi link turns itself off after a while, which can be averted by tweaking the options:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf
# Disable power saving
options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0
  

The WordPress sourcecode tag seems to turn underscores into blanks [Update: on the last line of a sourcecode block, which I’ve now forced to be a blank line] ; the options should read rtw_power_mgmt and rtw_enusbss, respectively.

Anyhow, the rtw_enusbss option prevents the USB interface from going down. It was already zero in the default configuration, but I presume there’s no harm in clearing it again.