lkml.org 
[lkml]   [1998]   [Jan]   [12]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: devfs patch v3
   Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 05:52:10 -0500 (EST)
From: "Steven N. Hirsch" <shirsch@ibm.net>

> If you have an Ethernet card, (and the manufacturer of the Ethernet card
> was competent about assigning Ethernet addresses --- some weren't,
> unfortuantely), the guarantees on the uniqueness of UUID's is much more
> than statistical, actually.

On boxes that do not have unique machine ID's (e.g. Digital Unix on
Alpha), the FlexLM license manager uses the ethernet address in lieu of
the serial number. Have you actually ever encountered a duplicate enet
id?

Just last year, SGI sent us (MIT) 20 Indy's all with the same Ethernet
address. We had a bunch of them on the same Ethernet subnet, and it was
rather surprising how few things broke, although that meant tracking
down the symptoms to the ultimate cause was rather tricky.

I have also heard stories of some companies (I believe, but am not sure,
that 3COM was one of them) which have also, through screwups in their
manufacturing process, shipped out Ethernet boards and PCMCIA cards with
identical Ethernet addresses.

It's not supposed to happen, but the Real World is often different from
the pretty little world which we software-types sometimes assume. :-)

- Ted


\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 13:41    [W:0.062 / U:1.060 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site