Network Name? Or best solution?

I am using Angstrom.

Every time my BB-xM reboots it gives a different mac address so my
DHCP server gives it a new ip address. It is against company policy
where I work to give anything on the network a static ip address. So
every time I reboot I need to connect a monitor and keyboard to the BB
to find out what it's IP address so I can SSH into it to start my
work...inconvenient.

I thought I would give it a network name like BBxM01 so I could find
it on the network. But the BB-xM does not seem to show up on our
network with a name.

What is the best workaround for this? Is there a way to give it a
name on the network that will show up? Or an easy way to make it use
the same MAC address?

I am using Angstrom.

Every time my BB-xM reboots it gives a different mac address so my
DHCP server gives it a new ip address. It is against company policy
where I work to give anything on the network a static ip address. So
every time I reboot I need to connect a monitor and keyboard to the BB
to find out what it’s IP address so I can SSH into it to start my
work…inconvenient.

I thought I would give it a network name like BBxM01 so I could find
it on the network. But the BB-xM does not seem to show up on our
network with a name.

What is the best workaround for this? Is there a way to give it a
name on the network that will show up? Or an easy way to make it use
the same MAC address?

I haven’t tried this yet, but in reading: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch05.en.html#_the_basic_syntax_of_etc_network_interfaces which was suggested in a previous list post, I believe you can add persistent MAC addresses in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules.

Isn't that for Debian and Ubuntu only. Ansgstom does not have a
'persistent-net.rules' file.

Isn’t that for Debian and Ubuntu only. Ansgstom does not have a
‘persistent-net.rules’ file.

Yes, I suppose it is. In that case, try this:

http://maxgalemin.blogspot.com/2010/11/patch-for-fixing-random-mac-address-on.html

Or even easier, with no kernel patching, just specify a random mac
address in /etc/network/interfaces

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
hwaddress ether 62:55:bf:8d:05:28

Regards,

Isn't that for Debian and Ubuntu only. Ansgstom does not have a
'persistent-net.rules' file.

root@beagleboard-systemd:~# find /lib/udev/ | grep persistent-net
/lib/udev/rules.d/75-persistent-net-generator.rules

I am using Angstrom.

Every time my BB-xM reboots it gives a different mac address so my
DHCP server gives it a new ip address. It is against company policy
where I work to give anything on the network a static ip address. So
every time I reboot I need to connect a monitor and keyboard to the BB
to find out what it's IP address so I can SSH into it to start my
work...inconvenient.

I thought I would give it a network name like BBxM01 so I could find
it on the network. But the BB-xM does not seem to show up on our
network with a name.

Angstrom has avahi enabled by default, so if your routers aren't blocking mdns (they do over here), you can do:

ssh root@beagleboard.local

If you want to use a different name, change /etc/hostname to e.g. BBxM01 and you can reach it at BBxM01.local

Hi Koen,

Angstrom has avahi enabled by default, so if your routers aren't blocking mdns (they do over here), you can do:

ssh root@beagleboard.local

Since you mentioned avahi with Angstrom here maybe you can provide
some suggestions regarding the problem I am observing since quite some
time but did not get to investigate it deeper yet.

In my setup I have BB with WLan with Angstrom running avahi/mdns
daemon and Debian running on my notebook. All in local network
connected over the access point. Name resolution works (i.e. I can do
ssh or ping for beagleboard.local). However it works only for about
1-3 minute after the start of avahi daemon. After that, the
beagleboard.local name could not be resolved. Restarting avahi daemon
on BB helps but also only for about 1 minute.

So I am wondering if you have any experience using avahi over the
longer time and if yes, are there any additional configuration might
be necessary either on BB/Angstrom side or on other hosts side to
prevent the "forgetting" of the name?

Thanks,
Andrey.

The pandaboard I booted >100 days ago still responds to pandaboard.local and I didn't change anything. I'm not sure what would case mdns to seize after a few minutes

The pandaboard I booted >100 days ago still responds to
pandaboard.local and I didn't change anything. I'm not sure what
would case mdns to seize after a few minutes

Well, then the problem is probably somewhere else in my setup.
Will need to investigate it deeper.

Thank you,
Andrey.

I am using the LAN9514 chip on the beagleboard-xm so the ip address
always show up as a 'usb0' interface so I modified the interfaces file
to have the following.

allow-hotplug usb0
iface usb0 inet dhcp
hwaddress ether 62:55:bf:8d:05:28

Now the usb0 interface is missing completely.

After working with it a little longer I am able to start the usb0
interface by this command:

ifup usb0

But it still ignores the "hwaddress ether" address and continues to
give a random mac address.

There must be some way to resolve this! You can't ship a product with
a random mac address!

The Embedded Linux class I’m in has two workarounds that I know of:

-The kernel patch linked to above will allow you to specify a MAC address to the kernel as a command-line argument. You’ll need to configure u-boot or change your boot script to give a MAC address this way. When I was not using a prebuilt image, this was how I did it, but when I switched to a prebuilt image, I stopped compiling my own kernel/u-boot.
-Use a USB->Network adapter. Trendnet’s TU2-ET100 has worked in at least two cases so far, but there are other adapters that work.

I have tried the /etc/network/interfaces approach without success. I don’t think anyone here has attempted the udev rules approach.

Hopefully, someone else from the class will correct me if I’m misinformed.

David Bliss
Computer Science, Rose-Hulman, 2012
1-616-284-1273