I've being thinking to this and I'm wondering why we shouldn't do it. When we have set no IP or 0.0.0.0, which is not a unique IP, and we bring it up, we should choose a random MAC to use. Conditions: the broadcast bit must be 0 and the "locally-assigned address flag" must be 1 (as likely we already do).
For which bits they are, I've a doubt. On Tanenbaum's book they're marked as the two most significant (leftmost) bits (broadcast being the most significant one), but since we've longly known the broadcast bit is the lowest-order one of the highest bit, I suspect that MACs are read in little-endian bit order (which likely implies the same for the whole packets). I can't verify this, but bytes in many fields are moved to be in network order i.e. big-endian order (MACs are always used in the network order). So possibly bit-swap is also used before going on the wire. -- Inform me of my mistakes, so I can keep imitating Homer Simpson's "Doh!". Paolo Giarrusso, aka Blaisorblade (Skype ID "PaoloGiarrusso", ICQ 215621894) http://www.user-mode-linux.org/~blaisorblade Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------- All the advantages of Linux Managed Hosting--Without the Cost and Risk! Fully trained technicians. The highest number of Red Hat certifications in the hosting industry. Fanatical Support. Click to learn more http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=107521&bid=248729&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ User-mode-linux-devel mailing list User-mode-linux-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/user-mode-linux-devel
