Re: RFC: Platform data for onboard USB assets

Arnd Bergmann
2011-03-18T09:01:31Z

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.

Arnd