Our networking group would like static (predictable) MAC addresses. As we upgrade to vSphere, I am trying to solve a problem related to this. I can't find any documentation on how to change the MAC address of VMkernel Network Interfaces? Ideally I would like to do this in a kickstart.
Anybody have any insight into what I need to do to specify those MAC addresses?
You can try Vimsh, but I don't know if you can use it during scripted install. I also have no information whether the mac address is changeable for VMkernel port and if you must respect VMware mac address prefix or not (00:50:56).
to retrieve information : hostsvc/net/vnic_info
to change mac address: hostsvc/net//vnic_set --vnic-mac=00:50:56:xx:xx:xx vmk1
Good luck
Regards
Franck
the VMKernel Nic's Mac address will be the actual Mac address of the physical Nics attached to the VMKernel port group
yes, but if you switch to another NIC after installation, the VMKernel Nic's will keep the old MAC address.
And if you reuse that NIC in another Server, you will get duplicate MAC address on the network ;(
"Our networking group would like static (predictable) MAC addresses."
lol...
Network guys. Of all things for them to ask. Don't they know that the MAC is embeded in the NIC and is physically non changeable? It's by design That's Networking for dummies. Technically in a windows environment you can "Mask" it using SMAC, but cmon asking to do this for the vmkernel? Sheeesh.
I got it to work by editing /etc/vmware/esx.conf . That appears to do everything I want after rebooting. Thanks for the input.