From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Miller Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] sysfs: add entry to indicate network interfaces with random MAC address Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:17:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <20100720.131748.51255156.davem@davemloft.net> References: <1279627656.2110.13.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com> <4C45996B.3000003@redhat.com> <1279636194.2110.45.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: sassmann@redhat.com, netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, gospo@redhat.com, gregory.v.rose@intel.com, alexander.h.duyck@intel.com, leedom@chelsio.com, harald@redhat.com To: bhutchings@solarflare.com Return-path: In-Reply-To: <1279636194.2110.45.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org From: Ben Hutchings Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:29:54 +0100 > On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 14:41 +0200, Stefan Assmann wrote: >> Btw, the driver itself could also alter the flag. Then we'd have a well >> defined way of setting a stable address. > > The driver can't know whether an address assigned by the user is stable. If userspace can somehow obtain a persistent address, it can kick udev too. I really don't see any real value provided by letting userspace mess with this. Because the permanence communicated in this value is from the perspective of the kernel driver, it's really therefore about the thing that's in ->perm_addr[] not what happens to be in ->addr[] right now.