serial numbers on new motherboards

[John Watlington]

On Oct 17, 2011, at 1:47 AM, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:

> I'm wondering what is the recommended process for changing an XO
> motherboard. The hardware side is relatively straightforward. However,
> new motherboards come with blank serial numbers.
> 
> What is the impact of leaving the SN# in the mfg-data blank? My
> understanding is that parts of the XO OS first-boot setup and
> interactions with an XS are derived from the serial number.

I can't recommend leaving it blank.  It is a "required field" in the
manufacturing data, which is expected to be present and to be
unique among XOs.

> We have devised a method (using an olpc.fth script) to write the
> serial number of the XO chassis to the mfg-data on the board. What is
> the method used in other deployments?

Good.  That should work well.  How are you generating/setting the UUID,
the secret part of the device authentication ?

I too am interested in hearing how other deployments such as Uruguay
deal with this problem.

Cheers,
wad