Return-path: Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:37230 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756686AbYG1PB4 (ORCPT ); Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:01:56 -0400 Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/6] mac80211: allow no mac address until firmware load From: Dan Williams To: Michael Buesch Cc: Luis Carlos Cobo , Johannes Berg , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <200807281600.39103.mb@bu3sch.de> References: <48763814.27052c0a.1794.2095@mx.google.com> <200807281544.33509.mb@bu3sch.de> <1217253397.6364.2.camel@localhost> <200807281600.39103.mb@bu3sch.de> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:59:34 -0400 Message-Id: <1217257174.28198.27.camel@localhost.localdomain> (sfid-20080728_170201_708567_9D9743F7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 16:00 +0200, Michael Buesch wrote: > On Monday 28 July 2008 15:56:37 Luis Carlos Cobo wrote: > > On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 15:44 +0200, Michael Buesch wrote: > > > Well, I think that really is pretty weird and it is confusing to the > > > user to see that pseudo random MAC that changes suddenly when the device is > > > initialized. For the human user (so everybody but me), it would be better > > > to have the MAC all-zeros until the firmware loaded. So it would be obvious > > > that the MAC is not set, yet. I think userspace > > > > The problem is that all-zeroes is actually a valid mac address, owned by > > Xerox (http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/oui.txt) Not that it will > > probably cause us any problem, but a multicast address is afaik an > > invalid mac for a device. Should we go for 01:allzeros? > > If that's really a problem, yes. 01:00:00:00:00:00 is still better > than a pseudo random MAC, IMO. It's immediately obvious to the user > that the MAC currently is not set. How about 44:44:44:44:44:44 like orinoco uses for bogus BSSID? If we can, let's not keep creating yet more bogus MAC addresses. Dan