Subject: Re: [PATCH 16/16] wl1251: Add sysfs file address for setting permanent mac address

From: Pali Rohár <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:00:24 +0100

On Monday 28 October 2013 14:55:22 Johannes Berg wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-10-28 at 14:49 +0100, Pali Rohár wrote:
> > On Monday 28 October 2013 14:45:05 Johannes Berg wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2013-10-26 at 22:34 +0200, Pali Rohár wrote:
> > > > Driver wl1251 generating mac address randomly at startup
> > > > and there is no way to set permanent mac address via
> > > > SET_IEEE80211_PERM_ADDR. This patch export sysfs file
> > > > which can set permanent mac address by userspace helper
> > > > program. Patch is needed for devices which do not store
> > > > mac address in internal wl1251 eeprom.
> > > 
> > > This doesn't really seem like a good idea since you can
> > > also just use 'ip' or whatever to set the MAC address.
> > > 
> > > johannes
> > 
> > AFAIK you cannot set permanent address (show by ethtool -P
> > wlan0) via ip/ifconfig.
> 
> You probably can't, but that address also doesn't matter at
> all and isn't really used anywhere.
> 
> johannes

There are some (proprietary) applications which using permanent 
address for something...

And also more important: some network managing tools using it. 
NetworkManager resetting current MAC address to permanent one 
before starting configuring interface.

So this will lead to never use correct MAC address (but random 
permanent one) assigned for that wl1251 wireless card...

-- 
Pali Rohár
[email-masked]