Re: MNT ZZ9000: Various additional drivers available.

[Alain Runa <alain74%gmx.net@localhost>]

Got it. Thanks!

> On 29. Mar 2020, at 13:32, is%netbsd.org@localhost wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 01:11:01PM +0200, Alain Runa wrote:
> 
>> I tried “ifconfig zz0 link 68:82:f2:12:34:56 active" just for fun, and was expecting some kind of error, as I didn’t implement this functionality. But instead “ifconfig zz0” shows now:
>> address: 68:82:f2:12:34:56
>> inet: 192.168.0.10/24 ...
>> link: 68:82:f2:00:01:00
>> 
>> Very confusing. Why do address and link differ? And what does address and link represent in this context?
> 
> NetBSD network interfaces have a list of addresses, each tagged
> with an address type. NetBSD supports, among others, inet (IPv4),
> inet6 (IPv6), and link (what the hardware uses, e.g. the 6byte MACs
> on Ethernet, WLAN, and Token Ring or the 1byte addresses of ARCnet).
> 
> One of the addresses is the active one, reported as "address", and 
> sent to the hardware to set the reception address filter when the 
> interface is configured.
> 
> This is never (on any Ethernet chipset I'm aware of) loaded from
> the chip's eprom, but always read out by the software driver and
> written back. (The reason is that there are protocols out there
> (e.g. DECnet Phase IV) that have a fixed Ethernet ID per machine,
> not per interface, so it must be setable if you want to use them.)
> 
> The transmitting direction is software, anyway.
> 
> Regards,
> 	-is