Dear Michael,
In message 201203272255.59259.michael@walle.cc you wrote:
Wolfgang, what do you think about relaxing this policy a bit and allowing this class of devices (no service port/serial port available, no storage for the MAC address besides the environment) to use hardcoded values (maybe defined in a place common to all boards). Again, i don't think my device is the only one with this problem.
Probably it is not the only device, but eventually all the others found other working solutions?
I still fail to understand why you would need fixed network settings. Evenin emergency cases, the only parameter you really need is a MAC address, all others can be fetched for example from a DHCP server.
As for the MAC address, it is in such emergencies OK to use a random locally administered Ethernet address. Note the "random" - hard- coding the same address for all devices is definitely a No-Go.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk