I am trying to configure the IP address of my embedded device. The device should have a static IP address and I attempt to set this using the /etc/network/interfaces file withiface eth0 inet static   address 192.168.255.212   netmask 255.255.255.0   gateway 192.168.255.1where I have been given these values by our network technician. My system is a minimal embedded system built with buildroot, uClibc and busybox. With this interfaces file, a call to ifconfig eth0 displays that the above settings have been enabled correctly, but I am unable to ping anything on my network. My question really is this: is the above interfaces file sufficient for setting a static IP or is something more necessary? From online tutorials, I see many mention of /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf files. I don't even have a /etc/resolv.conf file on my system. I am having other problems as described here Unable to get embedded device to ping anything on the network so I am asking this question separately to verify that I am setting up the static IP address correctly and rule out an incorrect setup.EDIT The output of route isDestination      Gateway     Genmask        Flags   Metric Ref  Use Ifacedefault      192.268.255.1   0.0.0.0        UG       0      0    0   eth0192.18.255.0     *           255.255.255.0  U        0      0    0   eth0but I am unable to even ping the gateway
Is /etc/resolv.conf needed when using a static IP address?
networking;ip;routing;busybox
/etc/resolv.conf is part of configuration of the DNS client (which is in its simplest form a part of libc), which tells it what servers to ask when resolving a DNS query. If you can live without DNS, i.e. use IP addresses for everything, which includes hardcoding these into /etc/hosts, you won't need it. Once you'll need to resolve a hostname using DNS, you are going to need it.To set up the connection you need to:bring the device upassign the IP to the deviceconfigure routing - create route to gateway, add default route via the gateway.