Subject: Re: [PATCH] dm9601: handle corrupt mac address

From: Peter Korsgaard <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:56:16 +0100

>>>>> "David" == David Brownell <[email-masked]> writes:

 David> On Tuesday 06 January 2009, Peter Korsgaard wrote:
 >> So what happens if you plug in 2 devices without an EEPROM? Do they
 >> get the same MAC address? That seems broken.

 David> What happens when you unplug one then re-plug it?  Maybe
 David> someone trips over the USB cable, or it gets an electrical
 David> glitch that evalutes to disconnect/reconnect... It gets
 David> the same address again.  Not particularly broken.

 David> Note that Ethernet was *designed* around using a single
 David> address per host ... I still have XNS docs sitting around
 David> somewhere, that was a fairly significant thing.  One of the
 David> original reasons Ethernet adapter addresses could change
 David> was to make sure that all Ethernet interfaces on a host
 David> would use the same address.

 David> That said ... if it bothers you, that's easy to change
 David> in userspace.  This code has worked this way for around
 David> nine years now; I don't recall any previous complaints.

Ok, I don't feel particular strongly about it, just found it odd.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard