Re: [PATCH] sky2: Add module parameter for passing the MAC address

On Wed, Aug 05, 2015 at 05:40:57PM +0100, Stephen Hemminger wrote:

On Wed,  5 Aug 2015 16:50:54 +0100
Liviu Dudau [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

For designs where EEPROMs are not connected to PCI Yukon2
chips we need to get the MAC address from the firmware.
Add a module parameter called 'mac_address' for this. It
will be used if no DT node can be found and the B2_MAC
register holds an invalid value.

Signed-off-by: Liviu Dudau <Liviu.Dudau@arm.com>

Yes, I can see that this can be a real problem, and other drivers
solve the problem. The standard method is to assign a random mac address
(and then let scripts overwrite) rather than introducing module parameter.
Module parameters are discouraged because they are device specific.

I agree. However, in my case, the boards people have assigned MAC addresses
to the chip, they just didn't built the board in such a way as to allow one
to store that MAC address in a permanent way :( And no, I can't use the DT
because the chip is actually on the PCIe bus.

Even with the generation of a random address, it still needs to be copied
into the device, so I would guess that a version of the patch I've sent is
still relevant?

Best regards,
Liviu

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