Mac Management Group

Merging is based on resource key names and values. Unix, Linux and Mac (ULM) systems that have even a single matching resource key name and value combination will merge. Typical causes are:

• Common mac addresses from virtualization software or other predefined NICS
• Stale DNS caches
• Common ‘uniqueid’ resource key values, which are based solely on mac address values on Mac clients.

To find common resource keyname and keyvalue values:

1. On clients, run “aex-helper info resource”
2. Compare the keyname and keyvalues between machines. Any two computers with a matching key/value pair will merge. We can exclude the key or the value, per the following kb articles.

Resolving Shared Guids (Assigning a unique guid to each machine)

Do the following two steps, in order, to prevent and cleanup merged ULM resources:

1. Configure the NS or the agent on the client computers to not process specific resource keys and/or values by applying the resolutions in either or both of the following two KB articles:  
   • http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO21641- How to exclude or ignore certain mac addresses as a resourcekey
   • http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO60919- Managing resource keys for event generation on Unix, Linux & Macintosh clients
2. Assign new, unique resource guids to the affected client computers per the instructions in the following KB article:
   • http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO84072 - How to Assign a New Resource Guid to a Unix, Linux or Mac Client Computer