From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Peter Meerwald Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] smsc95xx: allow to re-use MAC address already programmed Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 10:59:36 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: References: <1328699332-9024-1-git-send-email-pmeerw@pmeerw.net> <1328699332-9024-2-git-send-email-pmeerw@pmeerw.net> <20120208.152647.2150915591550944292.davem@davemloft.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, danny.kukawka@bisect.de To: David Miller Return-path: Received: from ns.pmeerw.net ([87.118.82.44]:51100 "EHLO pmeerw.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752462Ab2BIJ7h (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Feb 2012 04:59:37 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20120208.152647.2150915591550944292.davem@davemloft.net> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hello David, > > patch adds a module parameter which allows to keep the MAC address already > > set (e.g. by the boot loader) if it is valid (otherwise the MAC address is read > > from an optional EEPROM or randomly generated) > No way, for the same reason as your other patch. > Module parameters suck, use something generic. is there a generic solution (yet)? the goal is to support tftp-ing a kernel image from u-boot and doing a rootnfs mount in the kernel (with the same MAC address) it was suggested to set the MAC address from userspace/initrd which seems to be a lot of overhead I am aware of Danny Kukawka's work in a similar direction the embedded approach would probably be to hand some board-specific callback to the 'network layer' in order to obtain a MAC whenever it is needed; this could replace/supplement random_ether_addr() found in many drivers regards, p. -- Peter Meerwald +43-664-2444418 (mobile)