Subject: Re: 1.0 ethernet weirdness
To: None <mouse@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU, mycroft@ai.mit.edu>
From: Chris Torek <torek@bsdi.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 04/20/1995 09:30:29
>SPARCs have an ethernet address in the on-board EPROM, and the SPARC
>version of if_le.c uses that.  This is almost certainly a bug.

This is how the Ethernet designers at Xerox envisioned the system.
(It is why XNS addresses consist of a 6-byte `host identifier' and
a four-byte `wire identifier'.  The wire ID is used only for routing,
and you have the right host iff the Ethernet address matches,
because it is (supposed to be) set by wires on the backplane, and
hence unique per machine.

Sun bought a block of addresses from whichever IEEE group it is that
sells them, which is why all Suns are 8:0:20:x:y:z (though it seems
to me that Sun have had to manufacture close to 16 million units by
now... perhaps they have already bought a new address block).

Chris