E1000: RAL/RAH (Receive Address Low/High) functionality

[Josh Cornutt]

This patch fixes the RAL/RAH on power-up/reset. The MAC address of the device is placed in these registers (as the specification states) so that the device address can be set by the user or read without having to use the EEPROM at all.

[Josh Cornutt]

E1000 RAL/RAH one-liner patch.

[Aleksey Ilyushin]

I do not agree with the patch. Here is the quote from section 14.2 Power Up State:

At power up, the Ethernet controller is not automatically configured by the hardware for normal operation. Software initialization is required before normal operation can continue. In general, the Ethernet controller is considered non-functional until the software driver successfully loads and sets up the hardware.

And another one from section 14.4 Receive Initialization:

Program the Receive Address Register(s) (RAL/RAH) with the desired Ethernet addresses. RAL[0]/RAH[0] should always be used to store the Individual Ethernet MAC address of the Ethernet controller. This can come from the EEPROM or from any other means (for example, on some machines, this comes from the system PROM not the EEPROM on the adapter port).

Hence it is the responsibility of the driver (or another piece of software) to initialize RAL/RAH.

Why did you come up with this patch? Was something not working properly for some guest?

[Frank Mehnert]

No response, closing.