[U-Boot] u-boot soft and hard ethernet addresses

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Duncan,

In message <1814106598.1047276.1510787951141 at mail.yahoo.com> you wrote:
>
> Many board manufacturers "assign" this unique MAC address by printing it on a 
> sticker and sticking that on the board somewhere. It's pretty darn hard to 
> read a printed sticker in software, so we have to revert to solutions that 
> actually work.

Such solutions usually include a barcode reader attached to some PC
which is used when you commission the board.  And yes, in this case
it is mandatory that the MAC address(es) stored in the environment
(which gets initialized as part of the aforementioned commissioning
procedure) takes precedence over any MAC address(es) that might be
stored somewhere in the hardware.

> In the "clever things" department, protocols like IPv6 merrily broadcast your 
> MAC address across gateways on the big bad internet, so if you value your 
> privacy, you'll appreciate the possibility to change your MAC address at will.

Right, this is another of a list of reasons why changing the MAC
address makes a lot of sense.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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DENX Software Engineering GmbH,      Managing Director: Wolfgang Denk
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