If you’re enabling RDP support, or other services on a Debian Linux machine that you want to connect to from a remote device, a static IP is an obvious requirement (be-that, ideally, a DHCP reservation or manually configured IP).
Considering I couldn’t opt for a DHCP reservation for my home set-up (long story) I went for a manually configured IP address, using the commands / configuration files below.
Edit /etc/network/interfaces:
sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.249 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1
Edit resolv.conf:
sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf nameserver 192.168.1.1
I found that after this change, in order for Network Manager to “release” control of the interface, I had to restart the device – I’m sure there is a better solution, let me know if you find one…