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I am using Raspbian Stretch Lite 2018-04-18. I currently have static IP working over wifi. I setup /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf to connect to my wifi and setup /etc/dhcpcd.conf to use a static ip:

interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.0.101/24
static routers=192.168.0.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1

But, instead of making changes to the /etc/dhcpcd.conf file I would like to be able to set the IP address of the Pi from a configuration file located in the /boot directory so that I can easily change it by mounting the sdcard on a Mac computer, which automounts the /boot partition. This will allow me to easily provision multiple pis with different IP addresses.

I know you can setup a static ip for ethernet using /boot/cmdline.txt, so I did try adding ip=192.168.0.101::192.168.0.1:255.255.255.0:rpi:wlan0:off to this file, but that didn't work. This thread seems to imply setting ip in cmdline.txt only works for ethernet.

Andrew Ringler
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  • You can create a symlink from /etc/dhcpcd.conf to /boot/dhcpcd.conf and place that file there. – Janka Jun 12 '18 at 18:30
  • Thanks Janka. That seems like it should work, i'll test and let you know. This person, https://harizanov.com/2014/09/exposing-raspberry-pis-network-setting-files-to-boot-so-that-they-are-visible-on-a-pc/, seems to think that works. – Andrew Ringler Jun 12 '18 at 20:56
  • @Janka You can't create a symlink on FAT – Milliways Jun 12 '18 at 22:49
  • And? The symlink is on the / fs, not /boot. – Janka Jun 12 '18 at 22:58

1 Answers1

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OK. Thanks for your suggestions Janka. Follows is a full answer.

First edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and /etc/dhcpcd.conf so you are connected to the network the way you want.

Then create the symlinks (also making backups of these config files):

sudo mkdir /boot/network
sudo cp /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf           
/boot/network/wpa_supplicant.conf
sudo mv /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.backup
sudo ln -s /boot/network/wpa_supplicant.conf 
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

sudo cp /etc/dhcpcd.conf /boot/network/dhcpcd.conf
sudo mv /etc/dhcpcd.conf /etc/dhcpcd.conf.backup
sudo ln -s /boot/network/dhcpcd.conf /etc/dhcpcd.conf

Now you can edit /boot/network/dhcpcd.conf and /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf when mounting your sd-card from Windows or Mac.

Note that I placed the config files at boot/network instead of directly in boot. I did this because the Pi, I discovered, already has a process that looks for a file at /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf and moves it to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf when found. Since I eventually want to enable read-only Raspberry pi this copy operation would have been problematic, so placing wpa_supplicant.conf at /boot/network/wpa_supplicant.conf avoids this process.

Andrew Ringler
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