Niagara 510: Assigning a MAC address in u-boot

Overview

On initial startup when attempting to obtain an IP address by DHCP, you may get the following error message:

BRCM.XLP432 Rev B2.u-boot# dhcp
*** ERROR: `ethaddr' not set

This is because the ethernet management ethernet adapter has no yet been assigned a MAC address.

You need to:

• Ensure you are using x-loader from the 2.3 SDK or later
• Ensure you are using u-boot from the 2.3 SDK or later
• Assign a MAC address to the u-boot environment variable, ethaddr

Update x-loader and u-boot

Follow instructions at: Niagara 510 - Updating x-loader and u-boot

Assign MAC address

BRCM.XLP432 Rev B2.u-boot# setenv ethaddr 12:34:56:78:99:aa
BRCM.XLP432 Rev B2.u-boot# printenv                        
bootargs=loader=uboot
bootcmd=
bootdelay=-1
baudrate=115200
serverip=10.10.18.36
ipaddr=10.10.3.70
netretry=no
updatefdt=0
confignae=1
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
fdtaddr=ffffffff8c186120
ethact=nae-0
ethaddr=12:34:56:78:99:aa  # <-- New MAC address assigned

Environment size: 240/1048571 bytes

Optionally, saveenv to make MAC address persistent

Test with DHCP

BRCM.XLP432 Rev B2.u-boot# dhcp
BOOTP broadcast 1
DHCP client bound to address 172.28.0.172
Using nae-0 device
TFTP from server 172.28.0.2; our IP address is 172.28.0.172
Filename '/pxelinux.0'.
Load address: 0xffffffff80500000
Loading: ##
done
Bytes transferred = 26461 (675d hex)