Bucking Horn

I am using a NanoPi NEO 1.4 and also observed MAC changing with each reboot. Linux npi-neo-1 5.10.21-sunxi #21.02.3 SMP Mon Mar 8 00:28:04 UTC 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux While I was successful configuring `/etc/network/interfaces` (`armbianEnv.txt` didn't work, didn't try `dhclient.conf`), I wasn't quite satisfied by the results. I thus looked for a different solution and stumbled over https://epsilonrt.fr/2018/03/corriger-une-adresse-mac-aleatoire-dans-armbian-sur-nanopi/ The solution suggested by that three year old post doesn't work with my kernel. But as it turned out, the analysis for the underlying problem was spot-on. That prompted me to create a custom device tree overlay as `nanopi-neo-stable-mac.dts` as follows: /dts-v1/; /plugin/; / { compatible = "allwinner,sun8i-h3"; /* * uboot tries to write a MAC address from ${mac_node} * to the device tree at 'local-mac-address' within 'ethernet0' * fdt set ethernet0 local-mac-address ${mac_node} * This obviously doesn't work if the device tree does not match the * expected structure, resulting in the kernel creating a random MAC. * * This overlay adjusts the device tree to accept uboot's MAC address * by adding * - 'ethernet0' alias for symbol '/soc/ethernet@1c30000' * (or change to whatever path your existing symbol 'emac' points to) * - 'local-mac-address' to structure at 'emac' * * Tested to work on a NanoPi NEO 1.4 - adjust for other devices as required */ fragment@0 { target-path = "/aliases"; __overlay__ { ethernet0 = "/soc/ethernet@1c30000"; }; }; fragment@1 { target = <&emac>; __overlay__ { local-mac-address = [00 00 00 00 00 00]; }; }; }; This custom overlay can be compiled with sudo armbian-add-overlay nanopi-neo-stable-mac.dts You may verify that `/boot/armbianEnv.txt` has been expanded by a new user_overlays option like: user_overlays=nanopi-neo-stable-mac After a reboot, a stable MAC will be used (likely starting with `02:81`) You may verify that `local-mac-address` has indeed been set by running: sudo dtc -qq -I fs /proc/device-tree | grep local-mac-address This should return something like: local-mac-address = [ 02 81 01 ba dc af ]; My initial complaints were also gone. What remains to be verified is whether that stable MAC is specific for that device or identical across multiple devices of the same type. As I only have that one device, I cannot test this. It would be important if you would run multiple NanoPi NEOs on the same link. Maybe a developer can shed some light on how uboot acquires that MAC address?