Re: [PATCH 17/18] wl1271: Read MAC address from NVS file on HW startup

[Gery Kahn <geryk@ti.com>]

On 30.Nov.10 18:04, Arik Nemtsov wrote:
>> The code flow of the add if (wl1271_op_add_interface) overwrites it from
>> vif.
> Thats the point of the patch. The MAC can be overwritten at any point
> between HW initialization and add_interface(). Either by a TESTMODE
> cmd or even by "ifconfig wlan0 hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx". The patch
> makes sure the MAC address is set (the default value is in the NVS)
> when the hardware is initialized.
>
> This allows the creation of monitor interfaces for instance. These are
> created without calling the driver's add_interface() and require a
> valid MAC address to be set. Such a monitor interface is added by
> hostapd when creating an AP (which explains why this patch is included
> in the AP-support patch-set).
>
> When this patch is applied one should be careful to not set the mac
> twice with different MAC addresses, as this might cause problems for
> the upper layers.
>
> Regards,
> Arik
The idea is to eliminate the situation where anyone "should be careful 
to not set the
MAC twice".
If there is MAC from NVS, make it system wide, w/o need to care about 
it. On the other hand,
if MAC set by `ifconfig' same story, make it system wide.

Best regards,
Gery