What's the appropriate strategy to remotely assign static IP addresses to a bunch of embedded devices in an un-managed network

Question

My company is currently developping an embedded device running uClinux. Those devices are supposed to be deployed in both un-managed and managed networks.

We are looking for the best strategy to assign static IP addresses (and subnet masks) to those devices (from a Windows computer on the network) when no DHCP (or BOOTP) server is available and save those values to a configuration file in the device.

This strategy shall avoid the usage of ssh, telnet or any similar interface. The device would be set with a factory default IP address and netmask (i.e. something like 192.168.1.1). Ideally, the strategy woudl also enable us to activate or de-activate DHCP support in those devices. The MAC addresses of the devices would be known information available that could be used in any kind of tool running on a Windows computer.

Does anyone know if any standard way of doing such a thing does exists? Any recommendation ensuring possible future portability on other platform than uClinux is welcome. A combination of standard Busybox tools or uCLinux available tools would be ideal.

Thanks in advance,

Francois

Answer 1

I think the best strategy is to use Zeroconf, which in embedded linux can be achieved with Avahi. The idea is that the device automatically assigns an IPv4 or IPv6 address to itself and resolves conflicts of addresses if necessary.

Devices can be discovered on the network and you can access them even if you have services running on the board. The best strategy is to have an IP alias on the network card with the zeroconf address and on the main interface you put the address you prefer