sysfs: add attribute to indicate hw address assignment type
authorStefan Assmann <sassmann@redhat.com>
Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:50:21 +0000 (02:50 +0000)
committerDavid S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:49:29 +0000 (20:49 -0700)
commitc1f79426e2df5ef96fe3e76de6c7606d15bf390b
tree645ca8ec803a110ce07dc873b7e99392efbf25eb
parent55bad82385f036a844429ff8989732f0ea3bfff9
sysfs: add attribute to indicate hw address assignment type

Add addr_assign_type to struct net_device and expose it via sysfs.
This new attribute has the purpose of giving user-space the ability to
distinguish between different assignment types of MAC addresses.

For example user-space can treat NICs with randomly generated MAC
addresses differently than NICs that have permanent (locally assigned)
MAC addresses.
For the former udev could write a persistent net rule by matching the
device path instead of the MAC address.
There's also the case of devices that 'steal' MAC addresses from slave
devices. In which it is also be beneficial for user-space to be aware
of the fact.

This patch also introduces a helper function to assist adoption of
drivers that generate MAC addresses randomly.

Signed-off-by: Stefan Assmann <sassmann@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
include/linux/etherdevice.h
include/linux/netdevice.h
net/core/net-sysfs.c