Subject: Re: [PATCH] pch_gbe: Use a randomly generated MAC instead of failing probe

From: Arjan van de Ven <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:35:09 -0800

On 1/16/2012 8:20 AM, David Laight wrote:
>  
>> the tricky thing with embedded hw like this is that all devices might
>> end up with the same, read-only filesystem, so storing the 
>> mac on the FS
>> and then loading it from there into the HW is... suboptimal.
>>
>> Would be very nice if busybox had a command that would check the mac
>> from each IF, and created the random mac from userspace 
>> automatically...
> 
> Since multiple interfaces on a single system are unlikely
> to be connected to the same LAN segment, it doesn't really
> matter if they use same MAC address.

I think you missed the point. All embedded devices have the same fs, so
if you have 2 boxes of the same model/brand on the same network, they'd
have the same MAC. That's generally frowned upon by network
administrators ;-)