On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 4:49 PM, John Gilmore <[email protected]> wrote: >> Currently, XO hostnames are set on first boot in the following format: >> xo-A-B-C >> Where A, B and C are the last 3 bytes of the MAC address expressed in hex. >> >> In Nicaragua we are seeing cases where XOs have no hostname set, both >> on XO-1 and XO-1.5. On XO-1 this is presumably because libertas >> usb8388 init was never 100% reliable, and on XO-1.5 its presumably >> because the wireless card was DOA but was replaced after first boot. > > Why would we need to get it from the wireless card? Isn't the > laptop's MAC address stored in the manufacturing data in motherboard > flash?
Good point. >> I propose we move to generating hostnames in the same format as before >> (xo-A-B-C), but with A, B and C assigned as random hex digits on first >> boot. >> (If people are worried about collisions, maybe we add a D digit.) > > Existing hostnames have three bytes of info (e.g. xo-12-3a-49). > Particularly if you're going to generate them at random rather than > by prior assignment like MACs, why reduce the amount of unique > information (e.g. xo-1-a-4 or xo-1-a-4-d)? Producing three random > bytes of info for the hostname, rather than 1.5 or 2 bytes, would > reduce the chance of collisions; and has the advantage of not > changing either the size or format of the hostnames, in case > anything else is depending on it. You're right. When I wrote "hex digits" I actually meant to write "hex bytes". i.e. I was not suggesting that we reduce the amount of data, only change where it comes from. Daniel _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
