Looking for an ASUS motherboard that net boots...

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:51:31AM -0400, Colin McGregor wrote:
> The board has the MAC address : db:b3:db:60:1d:00 . This is a
> broadcast MAC address.

So it has address 00:1d:60:db:b3:db when not read in reverse.  That
would make sense.

So you actually see the reversed address in the logs from the network
boot server?

> If I boot a live CD the the software will detect that I have an
> invalid MAC address. The software will then change the MAC address to
> a valid value selected at random. This is an issue as the server
> software uses the MAC address to know what configuration files to be
> loaded into which client machine(s)...

Which kernel version are you booting?
	
I see changes were made in the kernel git tree around a year ago (not sure
when they entered the release kernels) to fix the fact that some newer
nvidia chips (like the MCP61 on your board) in fact are NOT reversed and
should not be messed with.  All kernels before that fix will get it wrong.

> The motherboard sends an invalid MAC address across the network and
> any software that respects the IEEE 802 standard will not work.

The network boot code does?  ouch.  That means ASUS stored the MAC
address reversed on a board where it shouldn't be, at least if the
comments in the kernel code that says MCP61's are never reversed are
correct.

> The way ASUS could fix this would be to put a valid MAC address into
> the BIOS. Alternatively, I gather one of the other motherboard
> builders that had the same issue offers a free MS-DOS (gag) utility
> that lets you change the MAC address in EEROM to anything you want
> (not ideal, but this is a workable solution). If ASUS offered this
> change MAC address utility, I could run MS-DOS once, change the MAC
> address and have a working netbooting system...

Hmm, I thought the MAC address was in the BIOS eeprom.

> The whole point of this exercise was to build a small, light weight,
> low power, quiet PC. If during set-up I need to connect a floppy drive
> or a CD-ROM drive as a one time event, I could live with that. What I
> am not willing to tolerate is having to keep any sort of drive
> (floppy, optical or hard drive) as a permenate part of the system.

Yeah that would defeat the purpose.

> Well, if I could even change just the first byte of the MAC address I
> could be off to the races, but with an invalid value there, and no way
> to change the MAC address I am @#$%.

Well the whole address simply needs to be reversed (or possibly not
reversed in the first place).

-- 
Len Sorensen
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