Re: [ECOS] network support

[Robin Farine <acnrf at dial dot eunet dot ch>]

Hi Lewin,

> On 14-Feb-2001 Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >> > I thought the MAC address was factory-programmed into the EEPROM that's 
> >> attached to
> >> > the CS8900A Ethernet chip. Why does redboot require me to specify one 
> >> manually? (I
> >>
> >>The EEPROM isn't really supported (contributions welcome, of course) 
> >>because none
> >>of the boards provided to us by Cirrus Logic has working EEPROMs on 
> >>them.  In fact,
> > 
> > Tres bizarre!
> > 
> > Am I correct in assuming then that I can choose any value I like, as long 
> > as it's unique?
> 
> Yes.  In fact, it really only needs to be unique within your LAN, since
> hardware addresses do not cross through gateways.

But be sure to set the two least significant bits as zeros! For instance, a MAC
address such as 05:10:20:30:40:50 would cause some problems because of the 05
that means a group address.