[ECOS] Re: RedBoot "set MAC address" API?

[Grant Edwards <grante at visi dot com>]

On 2006-11-06, Laurie Gellatly <laurie.gellatly@netic.com> wrote:

> Seeing we've yet to make the first production run, that part of
> the process is conceptual only. I like your idea of programming it 
> from the net and keeping a single image.

The trick is that you can only have a single unit attached to
the MAC programming station at a time because you have to use a
broadcast address to talk to the unit.  Another option is to
have a way for RedBoot to recognize that it's "unconfigured"
and use a known, temporary MAC and IP address up through the
MAC configuration step.

> I agree that it does appear that there is no defined method
> for solving this in eCos. Surely we're not the first to have
> this problem.

I presume that this is a result of the eCos network stack (and
therefore it's driver API) being ported from BSD.  On
traditional Unix systems an Ethernet chip usually comes on a
board (e.g. a PCI card) with an accompanying memory part
programmed at the factory with a unique MAC.  The driver for
such an Ethernet board could expect to be able to read the MAC
address from the ROM on the Ethernet board and then write it to
the Ethernet chip on that board.

-- 
Grant Edwards
grante@visi.com


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