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Date:      Sun, 26 Aug 2001 22:37:04 -0700
From:      Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>
To:        freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Frustrating network problem - need diagnotic help
Message-ID:  <m11yly6p33.fsf@reader.newsguy.com>
In-Reply-To: <200108262343.f7QNhuR11424@ptavv.es.net> ("Kevin Oberman"'s message of "Sun, 26 Aug 2001 16:43:56 -0700")
References:  <200108262343.f7QNhuR11424@ptavv.es.net>

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"Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> writes:

> For all of you who don't have a copy of 802.3 handy, there are two
> special bits in a MAC address. They are the first two bits on the wire
> in the MAC, but because of the bit ordering on the wire, these are the
> last bits of the first byte of the MAC.

How would you phrase this, speaking to a `network impaired' (dodo)
person, please?  Or at least maybe a diagram of the posted MAC as it
relates to the items enumerated above.

> The first bit is the "group address" bit. This means multicast or
> broadcast. (Broadcast is simply a special case of multicast.) It
> should NEVER be set in the source address, so the first octet must be
> even. 

Ditto

> The second bit the "locally administered" bit, indicating that the MAC
> address is locally assigned and not always globally unique. Some
> protocols like DECnet IV and Xerox PUP make use of this, but it is
> pretty much unused these days.
>
> In any case, a MAC address with an odd first byte is clearly not legal
> as a source address.

Well, sounding like a perfect lamer here, I'm not sure I follow what
this all means. Following bits, bytes, hexidecimal et al, confuses me
greatly.  Can you offer a guess as to what this all means for the
posted MAC: 01:d4:ff:03:00:20?

Sounds as if it is a patent dud, what with starting like `01'.  Is
that true?  What does one do to correct bogus recognition?
Or, when you say `source address' does that not apply to the address
revealed with `ifconfig ed0'?

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