What is the use of static.network file in VA?

Identity Security Cloud (ISC) ISC Discussion and Questions
1

I’m very confused why we need to use static.network.
I have seen some of the post where they just used Name=ens160 nothing else and it worked. I know that it sets the IP address of the machine to static.

So just wanted to understand what is the idea behind static.network Architecture wise?

2

Hi @sbhagat

Your confusion is understandable—network configuration in SailPoint’s Virtual Appliance (VA), especially when using systemd-networkd, can be a bit tricky if you’re not familiar with how Linux handles network interfaces under the hood.

Let me clarify:

Why Use static.network in SailPoint VA?

SailPoint’s Virtual Appliance (VA) is built on a minimal Linux distribution (Flatcar) and it uses systemd-networkd for managing networking.

The static.network file is a configuration file for systemd-networkd. It’s placed in /etc/systemd/network/ and used to assign a static IP address to the network interface inside the VA.

What Does a static.network File Look Like?

Here’s a typical example:

[Match]
Name=ens160

[Network]
Address=192.168.1.100/24
Gateway=192.168.1.1
DNS=8.8.8.8

Breakdown:

  • [Match] Name=ens160: This tells systemd-networkd to apply this config to the interface named ens160. [more like adapter]
  • [Network] Address: Static IP + subnet mask
  • Gateway: Default route
  • DNS: DNS resolver (optional but recommended)

Why Just Name=ens160 May “Work” Sometimes

If someone only uses:

[Match]
Name=ens160

and sees the network “working,” then one of the following is true:

  1. DHCP is still enabled elsewhere, and the interface gets an IP address dynamically.
  2. They’ve configured the network manually somewhere else (like via cloud-init, or another script).
  3. The config file is incomplete and doesn’t actually change anything — it’s just matching the interface but not assigning any IP.

So just using Name=ens160 doesn’t actually set a static IP. It merely targets the interface. The [Network] section is required to assign an IP, gateway, DNS, etc.

Hope this helps

Thanks
Sid

2 Likes
3

@sidharth_tarlapally His question was just wanted to understand what is the idea behind static.network Architecture wise?

4

@narayanag

To directly address the question —

By default the SailPoint Virtual Appliances ship with Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) enabled which allows them to automatically detect and assign dynamic networking configurations. That being said, customer admins often want to assign static networking (IP) addresses to their Virtual Appliances.

@narayanag Please feel free to share any additional insights you might have on this — would be glad to learn more from your experience.

Thank you

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