On 02/13/2009 07:35 PM, Alan Altmark wrote: > On Friday, 02/13/2009 at 01:15 EST, Mark Post <[email protected]> > wrote: >>>>> On 2/13/2009 at 1:01 PM, Alan Altmark >>>>> <[email protected]> wrote: >> -snip- >>> Eh? The OSA (real or virtual) already has a MAC address. You >>> aren't required to ifconfig a MAC address to bring up an OSA with >>> Layer 2, so why does the install want one? (The drivers extract >>> the burned-in or otherwise currently set MAC address.) >> Perhaps so it can know just which one you want to use. The whole >> point of the parmfile is to specify everything that is needed to >> get the right network parms set up on the right hardware and >> accessing the right network installation source. > > Agreed, but a manually set MAC address is not *needed* on ANY > platform. EVERY nic has burned-in MAC that can be used. Does SLES > install on Intel prompt for MAC address, too?
As far as I was told, certain versions of qeth device drivers required the setting of a MAC address with real OSAs, because all virtual machines would otherwise take the one MAC address of the OSA and would end up talking with the same address to the outside no more being distinguishable. Recent driver versions have code which generates a unique MAC address when using real OSAs and there is no more need to specify a MAC address. For SLES 10 the following applies: <quote src="Linux on System z, Device Drivers, Features, and Commands November, 2007 Linux Kernel 2.6 - October 2005 stream, SC33-8289-04" urlP="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/linux390/october2005_documentation.html"; chapter="9" section="MAC address handling with the layer2 option" page="110"> For connections within a QDIO based z/VM guest LAN environment, z/VM assigns the necessary MAC addresses to its guests. For Linux instances that are directly attached to an OSA-Express adapter in QDIO mode, you need to assign the MAC addresses yourself. Consult your distribution documentation on how to assign a MAC address. Alternatively, you can change it by issuing the command: ifconfig <interface> hw ether <MAC address> Note: Be sure not to assign the MAC address of the OSA-Express adapter to your Linux instance. </quote> >>> (And why is the parameter specific to OSA? *OSA*HWaddr? Other >>> platforms have MACs, too.) >> No other platform has a parmfile read in from the z/VM virtual >> reader. > > Are you trying to tell me my shoelaces are untied? :-) Why does the > source of a parmfile dictate the parameter names? I'm just > surprised that it isn't HWaddr= as I would expect it to be on all > platforms for any ethernet adapter. There seems to be a reason according to http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc: <quote> introduced in SLE10 SP1 Manual MAC address setting for Layer 2-enabled OSA devices. Note that this is distinct from HWAddr, which contains the default MAC address as detected by linuxrc. </quote> One problem remains, though. In environments with GuestLAN or VSWITCH, there is no need to specify a MAC address. How would a user specify the fact that he doesn't want to set the MAC address in the parmfile? Regards Steffen Linux on System z Development IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter Geschäftsführung: Erich Baier Sitz der Gesellschaft: Böblingen Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 243294 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
