[ale] NICs with settable MAC addrs?

[Steve Throckmorton]

Here's the line from the diagnostics page at scyld.com:

-H 00:11:22:33:44:55 
Set the hardware MAC station address to the specified value. This should never be done. 

This was my understanding as well, that each MAC address was unique and should be left alone.  This only reason I can think to do this is to replace an older piece of hardware with a newer without some part of the network seeing that it's a new piece.  Is that what this is for?

--- Byron A Jeff  wrote:
> > 
> > Does anyone know how I can tell if a particular model of NIC (Ethernet
> card)
> > will allow its MAC address to be changed with ifconfig?
> 
> I'd advise taking a look at Donald Becker's Linux Ethernet card page at
> http://www.scyld.com. Especially take at a look at the diagnostic page.
> 
> A nearly foolproof way to tell is to see if the card has EEPROM. If it does,
> then that's where the MAC address will be stored, and it can almost always
> be changed.
> 
> BTW the last card I did this with was a 3Com 3C905.
> 
> > 
> > I'm building some boxes and I need to know before ordering parts.  Since
> > I'm building 1U sytems, I cannot just use any card.
> 
> Even if you find docs that indicate that it can be changed, I'd suggest 
> getting a test unit and verifying.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 
> BAJ
> --
> To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 
a year!http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/