/etc/network/interfaces not loading correctly at boot

Question

I'm trying to use my Beagleboard Black as a wireless access point (using hostapd and dnsmasq). I've found that I can connect (I'm assigned an IP address, get a DNS Server and Default Route), but I am unable ping my Beagleboard Black (BBB).

To debug, I connected my laptop via the USB interface with the BBB, ssh'ed in and ran ifconfig: (Snipped the other interfaces)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr c8:3a:35:c1:32:3e  
          inet6 addr: fe80::ca3a:35ff:fec1:323e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:576 (576.0 B)

I tried to restart the networking service to see if that would help, and it did. Running service networking restart, and then ifconfig:

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr c8:3a:35:c1:32:3e  
          inet addr:10.10.10.1  Bcast:10.10.10.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::ca3a:35ff:fec1:323e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:576 (576.0 B)

After that point, I can take my laptop and connect via WiFi to the BBB and am able to contact it.

Why do I need manually to run service networking restart in order for my configuration to be loaded correctly?

---

cat /etc/network/interfaces:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
#auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
# Example to keep MAC address between reboots
#hwaddress ether DE:AD:BE:EF:CA:FE

#Wifi Hosting
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
        address 10.10.10.1
        netmask 255.255.255.0

# The secondary network interface
#auto eth1
#iface eth1 inet dhcp

# WiFi Example
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp
#    wpa-ssid "essid"
#    wpa-psk  "password"

# Ethernet/RNDIS gadget (g_ether)
# ... or on host side, usbnet and random hwaddr
# Note on some boards, usb0 is automaticly setup with an init script
iface usb0 inet static
    address 192.168.7.2
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.168.7.0
    gateway 192.168.7.1

Answer 1

When I changed the line auto wlan0 to allow-hotplug wlan0 in my /etc/network/interfaces file, it just worked.

The answers to this question helped me.