Unable to assign IPv4 address to the network interface

[dips0502]

I dont know when exactly this happened. But I am guessing that it could have been after I ran pacman -Syu.
One fine day I couldn't access the Seagate GoFlex. I made myself a USB pen-drive and tried to boot from it. I used the "ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-latest.tar.gz " image. Still couldnt access the device. Then I did some network capture and found some ICMPv6 router solicitaiton messages and found that the device has an IPv6 address. Thankfully I was able to SSH into it using it's IPv6 address. Here is the ifconfig output:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
[root@alarm ~]# ifconfig
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet6 fe80::50:43ff:fef5:39b2 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
ether 02:50:43:f5:39:b2 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 85 bytes 13817 (13.4 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 71 bytes 9702 (9.4 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 11

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 16436
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10<host>
loop txqueuelen 0 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 80 bytes 6080 (5.9 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 80 bytes 6080 (5.9 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
')

I configured a static profile under /etc/netctl/. Then enabled it. However on reboot, it doesnt have any effect. I still get the same output from ifconfig.
Here is the profile I created for a static IP -
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
[root@alarm netctl]# cat ethernet-static
Description='A basic static ethernet connection'
Interface=eth0
Connection=ethernet
AutoWired=yes
IP=static
Address=('192.168.1.100/24')
Gateway='192.168.1.1'
DNS=('192.168.1.1')

## For IPv6 autoconfiguration
#IP6=stateless

## For IPv6 static address configuration
#IP6=static
#Address6=('1234:5678:9abc:def::1/64' '1234:3456::123/96')
#Routes6=('abcd::1234')
#Gateway6='1234:0:123::abcd'
')

However, when I run 'ifconfig eth0 down; netctl start ethernet-static', I get the static Ipv4 address assigned. Changed are lost on reboot.

[Geoff]

As you're using netctl, make sure systemd-networkd.service didn't also get enabled. You could use either one to do the job; just don't enable both at once.

[dips0502]

It was enabled. I stopped and disabled it. However, upon reboot, I still dont get any Ipv4 address.
Output from netctl status ethernet-static says that it failed to start the profile.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
[root@alarm ~]# netctl status ethernet-static
* netctl@ethernet\x2dstatic.service - A basic static ethernet connection
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/netctl@ethernet\x2dstatic.service; enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2014-09-21 05:45:57 UTC; 4min 58s ago
Docs: man:netctl.profile(5)
Process: 104 ExecStart=/usr/lib/network/network start %I (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 104 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Sep 21 05:45:57 alarm network[104]: Starting network profile 'ethernet-static'...
Sep 21 05:45:57 alarm network[104]: The interface of network profile 'ethernet-static' is already up
Sep 21 05:45:57 alarm systemd[1]: netctl@ethernet\x2dstatic.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Sep 21 05:45:57 alarm systemd[1]: Failed to start A basic static ethernet connection.
Sep 21 05:45:57 alarm systemd[1]: Unit netctl@ethernet\x2dstatic.service entered failed state.
')

[dips0502]

Read on another thread that the default behavior of netctl is to fail if the interafce is up. To override this, needed to use -
ForceConnect='yes'.
Reference - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162582