> I have an old sparcstation SLC which have losen his internal
> configuration.  When booting, it says that ethernet address is
> ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff.

> (It seems that is an old PROMs bug)

This looks like what happens when the "EEPROM" (which is really
battery-backed RAM, not real EEPROM, in the systems I've looked at)
loses its contents.  Usually, this indicates that the battery has
failed.  (If you get this error after power-off, but not upon "reset"
to the prom prompt after reloading the "EEPROM", this is probably
exactly what's happened.)

> My network don't really support this suspicious address,

Yeah, that's the Ethernet broadcast address.

> so I would know if I can force an ethernet address (with "ifconfig"
> maybe ?)

> (I run NetBSD 1.2.1)

Not with ifconfig, not with any version of NetBSD AFAIK.  But you can
reload the prom contents, in which case it'll be fine until it next
loses power.  Somewhere in the port-sparc archives is a message from
mrg, I believe, briefly describing the first 16 bytes and how to reload
them.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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