OLIMEX / OLIMEX/olimage

All A64 boards have the same MAC address

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#3 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
Python
Stars
17
Forks
17
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

All A64 boards have the same Ethernet address (02:ba:7b:d5:c6:6f), which prevents them from being connected to a single switch. What's more, uBoot is configured so that the ethaddr variable cannot be overridden. A workaround is to override the MAC address in /etc/network/interfaces.

While this is obviously a hardware bug, it would be neat if it could be fixed in software. That requires modifying the uBoot configuration so the ethaddr can be changed, and doing some magic to use a distinct yet stable MAC address per board. (If the address is not stable, environments in which reboots are common will exhaust DHCP ranges pretty fast).

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by inspecting the uBoot configuration for the ethaddr setting and the existing workaround in /etc/network/interfaces. Determine how a distinct, stable MAC address can be selected per board while allowing ethaddr to be overridden; done means multiple A64 boards can share a switch and retain their addresses across reboots.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
embedded-iot, networking
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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