[U-Boot-Users] bootloader MAC

[Rune Torgersen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: u-boot-users-bounces at lists.sourceforge.net 
> [mailto:u-boot-users-bounces at lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of NZG
> Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 17:32
> To: u-boot-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: [U-Boot-Users] bootloader MAC
> 
> On Thursday 08 June 2006 4:40 pm, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> > Nobody is talking about about dynamical assignemnt.
> >
> > It's just that the *Linux* *driver* is responsible to 
> initialize  it,
> > no matter which boot loader you use and what the boot 
> loader is doing
> > or not doing.
> In some cases that would amount to dynamic reassignment, such 
> as in the 
> Coldfire fec, which does not provide the typical load from eeprom 
> functionality for it's MAC. It must be assigned by software 
> somewhere, I am 
> of the opinion that the bootloader should do it.
> Why?
> Because when we ship a board, we have to program the 
> bootloader into it so 
> customers can load an OS, the MAC goes into a protected 
> region of flash, 
> which it's not likely to be accidentally removed. We buy 
> chunks of MAC 
> addresses and assign them to boards we ship in quantity.
> I look at the bootloader like the BIOS of a PC without the 
> system calls. It 
> initializes the hardware to a minimal point (you've at least 
> got to turn on 
> the DRAM, an IMHO make sure the MAC is valid) and loads the OS.
> The OS will probably change with time, but the 
> BIOS/bootloader is less likely 
> too. 

On PPC we have the MAC proframmed in FLASH as a u-boot evironment variable. THis is in turn passed to the kernel on th ebd_T struct, and the *Linux* driver initializes the MAC on the ethernety interface when the ethernet driver is initialized.

Do the same. Pass the MAC to the kernel and let the driver init set the MAC to the hardware.