Helios 64, kernel 6.8.11-edge - Ethernet interfaces change name and MAC

[crosser]

With the recent update of the kernel "edge" package (6.8.11-edge-rockchip64) when the system boots. interfaces get different names (they used to be "end0" and "eth1" before, and now they are "eth0" and "eth1"), but more importantly, they both show different MAC address (the old address returns when previous kernel is booted). It took some time to figure why it did not appear on its prescribed address...

Anyone notice this, or has a clue why?

 

Armbian 24.5.5 noble
Linux kobol 6.8.11-edge-rockchip64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat May 25 14:28:41 UTC 2024 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

[ebin-dev]

MAC address changed in edge kernels to native hardware address (see here).

[crosser]

Thanks @ebin-dev!
(I need to figure out what to watch to keep up with the new developments. Not easy when it comes to armbian...)

[prahal]

On 8/17/2024 at 9:25 PM, ebin-dev said:

MAC address changed in edge kernels to native hardware address (see here).

My change was about restoring the eth0/end0 MAC address to its intended value (ie grabbed from OTP via SPI as it was designed to work until it was broken at one point).

It does not change the interface names. I warned about it as if one had a static DHCP lease on the MAC that was set for a few years other than the OTP one the lease would not apply.

 

The change is included for 6.9 and up, the issue reported above is for 6.8 (though it is likely a user space issue as interface renaming is udev userspace).

So I guess @crosser upgraded from a kernel with the initial behavior I restored to an intermediate one which did not grab the MAC from the OTP.

 

Note also that I did not apply these changes to the 6.6 kernel (-current), only to -edge.

 

The MAC address and the interface rename issue are unrelated.

[crosser]

Thanks @prahal. I think that possibly interface renaming issue was triggered by the change of the MAC, as in, there was a preexisting renaming udev rule that bound the name to the mac address, and it stopped matching. My system was upgraded across multiple ubuntu versions, it's difficult to figure what's the new thing, and what's a leftover (booting the same userspace with 6.6 kernel returns the old naming).

Yes, static dhcp lease is what bit me.

And big thanks for your effort! It's awesome to be able to continue to use this very decent hardware so long after it was abandoned!