Re: RFC: Platform data for onboard USB assets

Roger Quadros
2011-03-18T09:55:48Z

On 03/18/2011 11:01 AM, ext Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Friday 18 March 2011, Roger Quadros wrote:
>> Just curious, how do Panda boards manage to get the MAC address? Is it
>> programmed in some other flash memory?
>>
>> The LAN9514 datasheet says
>> "If a properly configured EEPROM is not detected, it is the
>> responsibility of the Host LAN Driver to set the IEEE addresses."
>>
>> So how does the Host LAN driver know what MAC address it should use?
>
> This is the problem we're trying to work out. The EEPROM is not
> present, and user space has no way of knowing which MAC address
> to set to which device. Note that there might be multiple
> USB devices of the same type that are indistinguishable to user
> space, so setting the MAC address there would not be completely
> safe.
>

And what happens if you need to use u-boot or some bootloader with
ethernet network support?

Wouldn't it be better to have the MAC address programmed at the
bootloader level?

--
regards,
-roger