# Dhcpcd configuration **URL:** \ **Category:** Network\ **Created:** [21 October 2026 10:17 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233 "2026-10-21T10:17:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bbitsch/32/7420_2.png) [@bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bbitsch)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 10:17 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/1 "2026-10-21T10:17:41Z")
Last night there was a problem with my DOCSIS internet connection. dhcpcd tried a renew in this time and remained in a endless wait loop. A red restart solved the problem. Searching for the config I found `/var/iipfire/dhcpcd.conf` only, no `/etc/dhcpcd.conf`. Is this correct, or got the link from /etc to /var/ipfire lost? EDIT: A deeper investigation shows, the config file should be /var/ipfire/dhcpc/dhcpcd.conf ( compiled in ). This file sets the timeout to 60 seconds. Is there problem known? After the timeout dhcpcd should retry, this didn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bonnietwin/32/12350_2.png) [@bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bonnietwin)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 11:09 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/2 "2026-10-21T11:09:11Z")
> [@bbitsch](#): > > Searching for the config I found `/var/iipfire/dhcpcd.conf` only, no `/etc/dhcpcd.conf`. > Is this correct It has always only been in `/var/ipfire/dhcpc/dhcpcd.conf` and as far as I can see never in /etc/ I went back to CU80 and there was no /etc/dhcpcd.conf in the rootfiles. ---
**Author:** ![bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bbitsch/32/7420_2.png) [@bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bbitsch)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 11:11 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/3 "2026-10-21T11:11:35Z")
See my edit. We posted in parallell. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bonnietwin/32/12350_2.png) [@bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bonnietwin)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 11:21 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/4 "2026-10-21T11:21:13Z")
You edited while I was posting 😁 dhcpcd looks to make a connection and eventually times out after 60 seconds. I think this has happened before with cable modem systems as they can take a very long time to complete their setup when re-booted. So it has been recommended before to start your cable modem first and then when its green lights show that it has completed and has a stable connection, then start your IPFire. There is no automatic re-try. This has been mentioned before in this forum. It has often been said that getting it to automatically retry is very easy but no one has ever supplied a patch to do it. With a 60 second timeout when it fails the rest of the start up initscripts complete and you end up with a system that you can debug. If you just put it into a loop to try again and again etc then it would never stop and the InitV startup sequence would not get past the dhcpcd step and you would not get a console prompt from which you could log in and do any debug. I think it is not as simple as people think and I suspect most of them when they went to try it found that out. I believe there is a bug report for this is or something similar and it is still open. ---
**Author:** ![bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bbitsch/32/7420_2.png) [@bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bbitsch)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 11:55 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/5 "2026-10-21T11:55:26Z")
Adolf, thank you for your quick response. I know, there is a discussion since a long time. I’ll try with some monitoring in the crontab. I had such a thing before, but it was deleted some time. I thought it wasn’t necessary. The investigation of the issue is someway more complicated. - The FB ‘modem’ isn’t accessible easily. The repeater mode is associated to a separate LAN port, which doesn’t allow admin page access. This is only possible via AVM’s WAN access. 🙄 . - Because the problem doesn’t occur very often, it is not easy to determine an approbiate condition. - The problem on the ISP connection is not known and can therefore not easily be produced and tested. The main problem in everydays life is: the issue mostly occurs some time in the night and the admin (me) isn’t the first family member using internet access in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bonnietwin/32/12350_2.png) [@bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bonnietwin)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 11:58 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/6 "2026-10-21T11:58:53Z")
> [@bbitsch](#): > > the issue mostly occurs some time in the night Isn’t that always the case. Those very occasional things are always the things that tend to hurt the most. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![hjkl](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/hjkl/32/8574_2.png) [@hjkl](https://community.ipfire.org/u/hjkl)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 14:26 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/7 "2026-10-21T14:26:30Z")
> [@bonnietwin](#): > > dhcpcd looks to make a connection and eventually times out after 60 seconds. > > I think this has happened before with cable modem systems as they can take a very long time to complete their setup when re-booted. So it has been recommended before to start your cable modem first and then when its green lights show that it has completed and has a stable connection, then start your IPFire. > > There is no automatic re-try. This has been mentioned before in this forum. Hi Adolf, A clarification, if you can provide it: if a software (!) disconnect and reconnect (down-up in interface) will trigger a new dhcpd cycle past the moment where those initial 60 seconds passed? Why I ask - in theory, a port-down followed by port-up might be a solution for this case. With a detection that red has no IP address, which should initiate the port down / port up sequence. I usually disconnected the cable physically and never tried the software down-up sequence when I had my test IPFire machine getting red IP address via dhcpd from primary IPFire. Bernhard, this is another great example why forum beats documentation. ---
**Author:** ![bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bonnietwin/32/12350_2.png) [@bonnietwin](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bonnietwin)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 14:58 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/8 "2026-10-21T14:58:58Z")
> [@hjkl](#): > > A clarification, if you can provide it: if a software (!) disconnect and reconnect (down-up in interface) will trigger a new dhcpd cycle past the moment where those initial 60 seconds passed? I don’t know. I am not familiar enough with all the involved code there. ---
**Author:** ![bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bbitsch/32/7420_2.png) [@bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bbitsch)\ **Post date:** [21 October 2026 15:07 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/9 "2026-10-21T15:07:48Z")
I think, it isn’t a problem of port down / port up or power switching. The FB just lost connection to the ISP, no idea whether it was a complete cable down or only server problems at the ISP. At the time of the event ( 03:00 ) I was sleeping and no one other in the family was watching TV or surfing in the internet. At about 10:00 I noticed a lack of internet connection. The interface was up, sometimes the FB ( my ISP provided ‘modem’ ) sent broadcasts to the 224.xx.xxx.xx address. IPFire’s log showed a DHCP renewal, which did not end. For the same time I found connection losses in the modem logs. dhcpcd did not retry the IP ackknowledge of the expired lease. After a restart of red the allocation of an IP was possible immediately. Whether just a renew of lease via dhcpcd would have been successful also, can not be answered. My trial was with incomplete parameters, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![tphz](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/tphz/32/16551_2.png) [@tphz](https://community.ipfire.org/u/tphz)\ **Post date:** [22 October 2026 00:06 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/10 "2026-10-22T00:06:56Z")
> [@bbitsch](#): > > Last night there was a problem with my DOCSIS internet connection. > dhcpcd tried a renew in this time and remained in a endless wait loop. > A red restart solved the problem. 🤔 Have you enabled the ‘Rapid commit’ option in the RED interface settings? ![obraz](https://community.ipfire.org/uploads/default/original/3X/b/3/b35049e05d481dc4f6ecdca37cced4ebc126ec71.png) > **[dhcpcd](https://www.ipfire.org/docs/pkgs/dhcpcd)** edit > [@Rapid\_Commit in dhcpcd Results in Non-Functional Connection (was: No internet after reboot)](https://community.ipfire.org/t/rapid-commit-in-dhcpcd-results-in-non-functional-connection-was-no-internet-after-reboot/10429): > > Hi, I have a weird bug. After reboot I have no internet but if I physically unplug and then plug back in the network cable will work. Also if I do: /etc/rc.d/init.d/networking/red stop /etc/rc.d/init.d/networking/red start will also drop the internet connection but it claims it got the right IP. Bringing up the red0 interface… Starting dhcpcd on the red0 interface… [OK] DHCP Assigned Settings for red0: IP Address: 173.180.2… > [@No inbound traffic on DHCP RED](https://community.ipfire.org/t/no-inbound-traffic-on-dhcp-red/10205): > > Greetings. With the recent change to default firewall rules affecting PPPoE connections, and the fact that it takes forever to connect with PPPoE I have started trying to use DHCP instead. I have fiber to the house. My IPFire is running on physical hardware, not a virtual machine. I’m running 2.27 core 176 When I set RED to use DHCP, I get a valid IP address, but NO inbound traffic. Here is the log from the RED interface where I switched from PPPoE to DHCP and then back to PPPoE again. … Regards ---
**Author:** ![bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/user_avatar/community.ipfire.org/bbitsch/32/7420_2.png) [@bbitsch](https://community.ipfire.org/u/bbitsch)\ **Post date:** [22 October 2026 08:06 UTC](https://community.ipfire.org/t/dhcpcd-configuration/16233/11 "2026-10-22T08:06:18Z")
Rapid commit is not enabled. Furthermore, it is not a problem of different boot times of modem and IPFire. A few days before I had a power outage. After restoring the power line, both devices started at the nearly same time. Internet connection just came up as expected.