In message 40978D65.7030805@mpc-data.co.uk you wrote:
You cannot use BOOTP (nor ony other network related protocol) to detect a MAC address!!!
I think that either we operate on utterly different brainwave-lengths or theres some kind of language barrier issue here!
BOOTP is a well-defined protocol which is based on the assumption that you have a network interface that can be used to send and receive packets. To do so, the interface must be initialized. BOOTP does in NO WAY work if your interface does not have a MAC address set. Especially, it does NOT retrieve the MAC address from anywhere.
If you issue a 'bootp' command to u-boot via its interface as I stated, the following call sequence happens if you're using the lan91c96 (with patch) or smc91111 ethernet devices :
do_bootp() [cmd_net.c] netboot_common() [cmd_net.c] NetLoop() [net.c] eth_init() [lan91c96.c]
Stop here. eth_init() performs the initialization of the ethernet interface, if this did not happen before, because an initialized ethernet interface is a precondition to use BOOTP.
So in practical use, issuing a bootp detects the mac address of the adapter.
No, no, no. This is plainly wrong.
Well, the following network related protocol calls : do_tftpb() do_rarpb() do_dhcp() do_nfs() all call netboot_common() so will in effect detect the MAC address as well ;-)
None of these protocols has ato do anything with setting the MAC address. Please don't mix things up.
You could as well claim that bootp sets the baudrate of the serial console, because to run bootp you must execute an initialization sequence which includes the serial port, thus setting the baudrate.
IT AIN'T SO!
Wolfgang Denk