Option macaddr ':' - what does it mean?

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

I've installed OpenWrt 23.05.2 on a NanoPi R1. After the initial boot I found in /etc/config/network the following lines:

config device
        option name 'eth1'
        option macaddr ':'

What is the meaning of option macaddr ':' , specially the value ':' ?

2

However, it seems strange to me that you have this option without having specified a mac address...

what is connected to eth1, does the connectivity between the router and the connected device work?

respond yours question:

the mac address option is used to specify a mac address to assign to the device

view:

3

This looks strange to me🤔

But maybe also not, can you check how the mac address looks like in luci for eth1? This can be done through: network tab->interfaces->devices tab

If it reflects there as an legitimate mac address I guess it would be some wildcard operator or maybe for specifying it needs to be a random mac?

Nor i have evidence this is a operator, since I could not find much info about this documentated.

If not I think this is a bug in your firmware :+1:, you run vanilla OpenWrt or FriendlyWrt?

4

Some Nanopi models did not have a "factory MAC" because the manufacturer didn't want to go to the trouble and cost to assign each unit a globally unique MAC.

I think in that case you get a random MAC every boot. If you want a consistent "locally assigned" MAC, just copy the present random MAC into the config and it will use the same one next boot.

3 Likes
5

If the value is a literal single colon and not a valid MAC then you've hit a bug. Whatever generated the default network config failed to embed a proper MAC.

6

the correct respond view the post of:

7

Me too. My first thought was: the ':' is for specifying a random macaddr, but couldn't verify this assumption.

Vanilla OpenWRT 23.05.2.

1 Like
8

So the ':' is just the result of the query for the factory MAC, right? The ':' is just an indication, that there is no factory MAC, right?

For me it seems, that OpenWrt ignores the value ':' and just sets a random MAC, right?

Already done!

9

As I wrote in my first posting, the file /etc/config/network was created after the first/initial boot. So the creator of the buggy network file is inside OpenWrt.