[hpsdr] Hermes/Angelia and Ethernet problems

[Scott Traurig]

Note: I had to trim the history on this reply because the HPSDR list has an
antiquated 12KB message size limit before moderation...

~~

OK, thanks for throwing me under the bus, Bryan--just kidding ;-)

First, a point of clarification: the illegal MAC address problem only
happens when Hermes, Angelia or Orion boards are in Bootloader mode. The
Bootloader MAC implementation advertises a MAC address of
11:22:33:44:55:66. I believe the intent of the developers was to use a
common MAC address in this mode as a conservative measure in case anyone
ever "lost" track of their radio on the LAN and needed to find it by that
means. Unfortunately, they chose a MAC address that is not legal and hence
is refused by any Layer 2 or Layer 3 managed switch that I am aware of. So
if you need to use Bootloader mode you will have to make a direct
connection to the PC or use an un-managed switch. As, much like Mike, I use
all managed switches in my house, this is a huge pain for me as I have to
go to the switch and patch the PC directly to the radio when using
Bootloader. This can be a frequent affair when testing beta firmware!

Now, when the radio is in a normal operational mode, the MAC address is
that associated with the manufacturer of the PHY chip used on the
Hermes/Angelia/Orion board, and it is, of course, unique for every radio.
It is a completely legal MAC address in every respect.

As for the completeness of the MAC and IP layer implementations in the
firmware, I can't say for sure. I can say that it has not failed to
successfully negotiate DHCP for me on my network on either the Angelia or
the Orion (I've not had the opportunity to try the Hermes). Again, my
network is similar to Mike's in that I have a managed L2 Cisco switch in
the shack which uplinks to an L2 managed TP-Link switch at my server rack.
DHCP comes from my Ubiquiti Edgerouter also at the server rack.

Mike--might I suggest you take a look at the MAC address tables in your
switches (they are managed, after all, so you should be able to) and see if
the tables are at least populating properly and that the MAC is propagating
correctly. You might find some obscure MAC related setting in the switches
is preventing this. Another debug step might be to move the radio to the
switch near your DHCP server and see if it works there.

Let us know how you make out with those ideas.

73!

Scott/w-u-2-o
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