SIS900 00:00:00:00:00:00 MAC solution
Derek Kwan
Haven't make NNTP posting for a long time... Anyways, I was trying to
get Slackware 9.0 to run on a P4 motherboard with NIC onboard.. Slackware
detected the NIC and use SIS900.o. However upon reboot, I notice the MAC
address looks very wrong -> 00:00:00:00:00:00. Interesting enough, if I
assign a static IP, I can actually ping it from another Windowz machine.
But my SMC router just fail to respond to this [invalid MAC] address.
So, I did some googling.. but not much help either.... (or maybe I
missed something?) Anyways, I thought, ok, this is not hard to fix. Just
assign a MAC address to eth0 and it should work fine.. so, before "dhcpcd
eth0", I added:-
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 1:2:3:4:5:6
reboot... Well, my SMC router now is happy to assign a IP addr for my
Linux box. And I can ping to outside world.. **BUT** I can't get any TCP
connection... weird... ok, then, time to fire up a sniffer and see what's
happening... Seems like SIS900.o is not too happy about assign a fake MAC
for the NIC... and turns out I found a sticker which said EA=xxxxxxxxxxxx
is the MAC address (EA = Ether Address ??) and hardcode that MAC in my
rc.inet1 (replace the 1:2:3:4:5:6 with the xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx). Ta da!
Everythings works like a charm!
To make the story short, see if you can find the actual MAC for your
NIC (hint: Labels) add the following in start of your rc.inet1
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 hw ether {your MAC here}
Good Luck
Just my C$0.02... :) Hope this helps....
Derek