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What are the valid values (and what are they used for) for the static option in /etc/dhcpcd.conf file?

I'm configuring a network interface of a Raspberry (running raspbian stretch) by editing the /etc/dhcpcd.conf file.
Altough I was able to set up it correctly, I am curious about all the configuration options provided through this file, specifically for static configuration.

I read the man page of dhcpcd.conf and didn't find any explanation of the values the static option accepts. I wasn't able to find anything on google neither.

The man page of dhcpcd.conf just says this:

 static value
         Configures a static value.  If you set ip_address then dhcpcd
         will not attempt to obtain a lease and will just use the value
         for the address with an infinite lease time.  If you set
         ip6_address, dhcpcd will continue auto-configuation as normal.

         Here is an example which configures two static address,
         overriding the default IPv4 broadcast address, an IPv4 router,
         DNS and disables IPv6 auto-configuration.  You could also use the
         inform6 command here if you wished to obtain more information via
         DHCPv6.  For IPv4, you should use the inform ipaddress option
         instead of setting a static address.
               interface eth0
               noipv6rs
               static ip_address=192.168.0.10/24
               static broadcast_address=192.168.0.63
               static ip6_address=fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::ff/64
               static routers=192.168.0.1
               static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1
               fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::1

         Here is an example for PPP which gives the destination a default
         route.  It uses the special destination keyword to insert the
         destination address into the value.
               interface ppp0
               static ip_address=
               destination routers

After reading some tutorials all valid options I know are these:

  • ip_address

  • routers

  • domain_name_servers

  • domain_search

  • domain_name

JFYI my /etc/dhcpcd.conf configuration file looks like this:

# Inform the DHCP server of our hostname for DDNS.
hostname
# Use the hardware address of the interface for the Client ID.
clientid
# Persist interface configuration when dhcpcd exits.
persistent
# Rapid commit support.
# Safe to enable by default because it requires the equivalent option set
# on the server to actually work.
option rapid_commit
# A list of options to request from the DHCP server.
option domain_name_servers, domain_name, domain_search, host_name
option classless_static_routes
# Most distributions have NTP support.
option ntp_servers
# A ServerID is required by RFC2131.
require dhcp_server_identifier
# Generate Stable Private IPv6 Addresses instead of hardware based ones
slaac private
# A hook script is provided to lookup the hostname if not set by the DHCP
# server, but it should not be run by default.
nohook lookup-hostname

# Static IP configuration for eth0.
interface eth0
    static ip_address=192.168.12.234/24
    static routers=192.168.12.1
    static domain_name_servers=192.168.12.1
    nogateway
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    I don't mean to be condescending but do you not have an understanding of basic networking? The values for each of those options are just a basic ip address/subnet mask, broadcast, DNS server, and the static router is the default gateway. Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 10:41
  • No, I understand their meaning and what they do (and even make use of them), but didn't find any documentation apart from tutorials. I'm looking for a more "official" manual that explain what are the values accepted for the static option, what they do, etc. because I don't know if those are the only valid options (those are just the ones present in some tutorials I read) or there are more. Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 11:00
  • 1
    As long as the syntax that you have follows what you see in that example then that's what's accepted. Whether or not you actually get a network connection depends on whether or not the values match up with the settings in your network such as the default router, network range, DNS, etc. Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 11:08
  • My problem is not about correctness of the configuration. It's curiosity more than anything else. Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 11:16

1 Answer 1

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I was wondering the same thing and also couldn't find any definitive answers out there, so I went digging.

I don't know if this is an exhaustive list, but here is a list of valid values for the static option that I have been able to glean from looking at the source code (available here):

ip_address
subnet_mask
broadcast_address
routes
static_routes
classless_static_routes
ms_classless_static_routes
routers
interface_mtu
mtu
ip6_address

These parameters are directly handled in the if-options.c file.

Here is where I am less certain about it being exhaustive, and where I am getting a bit speculative on what is going on. As you have no doubt noticed, this doesn't include domain_name_servers, etc. After parsing the config file and directly dealing with any of the above parameters, there can still be some parameters that have not been handled in if-options.c. I think that these remaining parameters are dealt with in the default hook scripts, specifically the 20-resolv.conf hook script (/usr/lib/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-hooks), for which I think there are only the following options:

domain_name
domain_name_servers
domain_search

As I said, I'm a bit unsure about the last bit as I didn't want to spend crazy amounts of time going through the source code. So any corrections would be very welcome.

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