There are many good reasons for the Ethernet (MAC) address to be
modifiable -- from redundant shadowing, such as Openvision's HA
(high availability), to hosts with multiple interfaces on a given
subnet, and more.
For more information on modifying the host's NVRAM, reference the URL
http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html for details.
Additionally, Item #12.1 in the FAQ that this mailing list distributes
every month or so, concerns Ethernet addressing.
Many pointed out 'ifconfig enet' as the method for temporarily modifying
the interfaces ethernet address. A handful replied describing other products
which also modified the ethernet address. Reto Lichtensteiger identified the
root of the problem with DECnet addressing when he wrote, "DECNet uses an
algorithm to encode the area and node numbers for a decnet host into the MAC
address. This gets around any requirement to "ARP" for a host. DECnet was
never intended for global connectivity, so the designers felt it was "OK" to
manipulate MAC addresses. Besides, they co-invented Ethernet ..."
Many thanks to:
---------------
Mark Bergman <bergman@phri.nyu.edu>
Jochen Bern <bern@TI.Uni-Trier.DE>
Kevin Davidson <tkld@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Fedor Gnuchev <qwe@ht.eimb.rssi.ru>
Chris Haggard <HAGGARDC@nssf1.nssf.af.mil>
Jim Harmon <jim@telecnnct.com>
Mark C. Henderson <mch@squirrel.com>
Martin Huber <hu@garfield.m.isar.de>
Danny Johnson <djohnson@nbserv2.dseg.ti.com>
Andrew V. Laden <Andrew.Laden@ska.com>
Reto Lichtensteiger <rali@meitca.com>
R. Srinivana Moorthy <rsm@idc.tandem.com>
Frank Pardo <fpardo@tisny.com>
Gene Rackow <rackow@mcs.anl.gov>
Glenn Satchell <Glenn.Satchell@Uniq.com.au>
David Sinn <DavidS@corbis.com>
Jerry Springer <springer@aitsun500.tci.com>
Liu Xu <Liu.Xu@PRC.Sun.COM>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:11:16 CDT