[U-Boot] at91sam9g20 MAC address in EEPROM?

[Jim Sheldon]

Hello Mr. Denk,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wolfgang Denk [mailto:wd at denx.de]
> Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 4:00 PM
> To: Jim Sheldon
> Cc: u-boot at lists.denx.de
> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] at91sam9g20 MAC address in EEPROM?
> 
> Dear Jim Sheldon,
> 
> In message <7941E07E1E020448937ACA7D4279E6327BAC64E468 at powerhog> you
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I am working on a product based on Atmel's sam9g20.  Atmel's flashing
> procedure stores the MAC address as a u-boot environment variable
> (ethaddr).
> >
> > We are not comfortable with storing the MAC address this way, and
> would rather keep it in EEPROM.  Does anyone have experience with this?
> 
> May I ask WHY you are not comfortable with using the U-Boot
> environment? Usually it's a very convenient place to store
> configuration data, and a pretty reliable one (especially when you
> use redundant environment).

We're not concerned about u-boot's environment not being reliable, we just want the ability to completely erase the nand without worrying about losing essential data (like a MAC address).  I suppose we could work around that area of the flash if/when erasing the nand is necessary, but then we would have to keep track of each environment variable that could be stored there.

> I have seen _way_ more cases where data in EEPROM got lost than data
> loss from the environment.

That's discouraging, do you have any advice for where to store the MAC outside of nand, and not in an EEPROM?

Thanks for all your work on such a great open source bootloader!  :)

Take care,
Jim 

> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
> 
> --
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