Re: [LinuxBIOS] ck804 romstrap modification

[Lu, Yinghai]

So you need to scripts for flash
1. get mac address from the legacy bios from flash
2. flash your linuxbios.
3. reprogram you mac address again.

Or conbine 2/3 to update linuxbios image, and flash it if you like.

Late when you like update linuxbios with linuxbios, just use flash util
with execlude command line to keep the mac address.

Good HW design should use serial EEPROM on smbus to preserve the MAC
address instead like s2895.

YH

-----Original Message-----
From: Roman Kononov [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 10:02 AM
To: Lu, Yinghai
Cc: LinuxBIOS
Subject: Re: [LinuxBIOS] ck804 romstrap modification

On 02/07/2007 11:35 AM, Lu, Yinghai wrote:
> That is not necessary.
>
> For the cluster,
> you need to program mac address for every node at the first time.
> and for the second time, you need to use scripts to preserve the

mac
> address.

Yinghai,

I am not sure that I understand you correctly. I guess, my
patch supposedly makes the step 1 easier.

I have no clusters. I have a number of PCs with original
BIOSes, and I need to flash linuxbios into them. The original
BIOS keeps the MAC address in the BIOS flash.

Another point is that I've spent quite a bit of time figuring
out exactly why my networking is screwed and how it would be
possible to move the MAC address definition from the secret
file closer to the particular target configuration and the
person compiling it. The MAC address is not a property of
ck804, it is a property of the mainboard or the target.

Regards,

Roman

[LinuxBIOS] ck804 romstrap modification

[Roman Kononov]

On 02/07/2007 12:13 PM, Lu, Yinghai wrote:
> So you need to scripts for flash
> get mac address from the legacy bios from flash
> flash your linuxbios.
> reprogram you mac address again.

Thank you for the clarifications.
> Good HW design should use serial EEPROM on smbus to preserve the MAC
> address instead like s2895.

It is not my case. Sun Ultra40 has AT24C64, which has no MAC in
it. This EEPROM looks smbus-unfriendly for it needs 13-bit data
words. In any case, the original BIOSes contain MACs, serial
numbers and other tags.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roman Kononov [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Another point is that I've spent quite a bit of time figuring
> out exactly why my networking is screwed and how it would be
> possible to move the MAC address definition from the secret
> file closer to the particular target configuration and the
> person compiling it. The MAC address is not a property of
> ck804, it is a property of the mainboard or the target.

What do you think about the above stuff?

I panned to modify romstrap.inc and Sun Ultra40 mainboard's
Config.lb, and put that mac_address.h into the target directory
so that a potential user of linuxbios.org would be aware about
all this.

Roman

[LinuxBIOS] ck804 romstrap modification

[Stefan Reinauer]

Lu, Yinghai wrote:
> So you need to scripts for flash
> get mac address from the legacy bios from flash
> flash your linuxbios.
> reprogram you mac address again.
>
> Or conbine 2/3 to update linuxbios image, and flash it if you like.

Maybe this is a case where we might want to teach that kind of
information to the flashrom utility?

It could detect the ck804, read the required information, and, when a
specific option is set, change the to-be-flashed image on the fly.
> Late when you like update linuxbios with linuxbios, just use flash util
> with execlude command line to keep the mac address.

Most of the flash drivers do "dummy exclusions" right now. Should we try
to fix them up?
> Good HW design should use serial EEPROM on smbus to preserve the MAC
> address instead like s2895.

Good hardware design also uses SCSI instead of IDE, but that does not
always help ;-)