Behaviour when ethernet MAC is 00:00:00:00:00:00 ?

[Jon Masters]

On Mon, 2007-11-19 at 17:52 +0100, Denis Leroy wrote:
> Gilboa Davara wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-11-19 at 16:52 +0100, KH KH wrote:
> >> 2007/11/19, Michael Wiktowy <michael.wiktowy at gmail.com>:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> It seems recently one of my two onboard NICs has decided to not
> >>> remember its MAC address between reboots. Since I just updated the
> >>> BIOS firmware, I suspect that as the culprit but I also upgraded to
> >>> Fedora 8 about the same time so it may be to blame. I don't know.
> >> When you update the bios, the tool accept a parameter for the mac
> >> address.. Each time you flash the bios, you need to give the mac
> >> address for the integrated ethernet (usually written on the top of the
> >> mainboard ), so it can be hardcoded into the bios...
> >>
> >> Nicolas (kwizart)
> >>
> > 
> > I've updated my share of BIOS... Large share.
> > Never seen a BIOS upgrade that erases the MAC address.
> > 
> > Most likely the on-board NIC has been fried.
> 
> typically the MAC address is programmed into an on-board eeprom 
> connected to the NIC. That's probably what's fried (or simply erased).

Oops. Someone already made my point :-)

Well, yeah, and it is possible to recover from this if that is what has
happened - but you'll need a tool from the vendor in order to flash it.
I say flash, when really they are still mostly serial EEPROMs.

Jon.