From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Casey Leedom Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] sysfs: add entry to indicate network interfaces with random MAC address Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:34:27 -0700 Message-ID: <201007210934.27986.leedom@chelsio.com> References: <20100720141816.16f0a939@nehalam> <4C469808.5060308@redhat.com> <20100721150732.GR7497@gospo.rdu.redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Harald Hoyer , David Miller , shemminger@vyatta.com, bhutchings@solarflare.com, 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 To: Andy Gospodarek Return-path: Received: from stargate.chelsio.com ([67.207.112.58]:19341 "EHLO stargate.chelsio.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750803Ab0GUQho (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:37:44 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20100721150732.GR7497@gospo.rdu.redhat.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: | From: Andy Gospodarek | Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 08:07 am | | Agreed. The subtle difference between a locally assigned address that | is persistent and one that is random would be helpful. And just to point out that this case _does_ exist: the igb/igbvf drivers use random_ether_addr() to generate a random, locally assigned MAC address for the PCI-E SR-IOV Virtual Function MAC Addresses while the cxgb4/cxgb4vf drivers use a persistent, non-random locally assigned MAC Addresses. Note that I am neither arguing for nor against the proposal. I'm just pointing out an existence case for the distinction. And yes, bit 1 being set in the first octet of a MAC address for locally assigned MAC Addresses is part of the IEEE 802 specification just as bit 0 being set in the same octet indicates that it's a multi-station address. Casey