[RFC 0/4] Add support into cdc_ncm for MAC address pass through

[RFC 0/4] Add support into cdc_ncm for MAC address pass through

[Charles.Hyde]

In recent testing of a Dell Universal Dock D6000, I found that MAC address pass through is not supported in the Linux drivers.  However, this same device is supported in Windows 10 (Pro) on my personal computer, in as much as I was able to tell Windows to assign a new MAC address of my choosing, and I saw through wireshark the new MAC address was pushed out to the device.  Afterward, Windows reported a new IP address and I was able to view web pages.

This series of patches give support to USB based Ethernet controllers for programming a MAC address to the device, and also to retrieve the device's MAC address using the existing USB protocol for these two functions.  This patch series further adds ACPI MAC address pass through support specifically for the cdc_ncm driver, and generally for any other driver that may need or want it, in furtherance of Dell's enterprise IT policy efforts.  It was this latter that I initially found lacking when testing a D6000 with a Dell laptop, and then I found ifconfig was unable to set a MAC address into the device.  These patches bring a similar level of functionality to cdc_ncm driver as is available with the Realtek r8152 driver, and is available with Windows.

Charles Hyde (4):
  Add usb_get_address and usb_set_address support
  Allow cdc_ncm to set MAC address in hardware
  Move ACPI functionality out of r8152 driver
  net: cdc_ncm: Add ACPI MAC address pass through functionality

 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c  | 28 +++++++++++++++++-
 drivers/net/usb/r8152.c    | 44 +++-------------------------
 drivers/net/usb/usbnet.c   | 37 ++++++++++++++++++------
 drivers/usb/core/message.c | 59 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 include/linux/usb.h        |  3 ++
 include/linux/usb/usbnet.h |  1 +
 lib/Makefile               |  3 +-
 7 files changed, 124 insertions(+), 51 deletions(-)

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2.20.1

Re: [RFC 0/4] Add support into cdc_ncm for MAC address pass through

[Oliver Neukum]

Am Dienstag, den 20.08.2019, 22:15 +0000 schrieb
Charles.Hyde@dellteam.com:
> In recent testing of a Dell Universal Dock D6000, I found that MAC address pass through is not supported in the Linux drivers.

Hi,

thank you for writing this code. It adds cool functionality.
There are, however, a few design issues and minor flaws with it.
I will comment on the patches in the series to point them out.
Could you correct them?

	Regards
		Oliver