Force MAC address in ESX via ethernetX.checkMACAddress

[NetJnkie]

I thought this worked in ESX 3.5. I need to force a MAC outside the VMware allotment. I've used this on VMware Workstation and thought it worked on ESX. What am I missing?

VMX entries:

ethernet0.present = "true"

ethernet0.checkMACAddress = "FALSE"

ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "false"

ethernet0.networkName = "Virtual Machine Network VLAN1"

ethernet0.addressType = "static"

ethernet0.address = "00:11:43:5a:e0:9f"

Thanks!

[Rumple]

you are trying to force a MAC address that is not in the static MAC address range for VMWARE.

If you want that type of static MAC address you can probably set it in the O/S network configuration and it should override whatever dynamic MAC vmware gives the machine.

http://www.vmware.com/support/esx21/doc/esx21admin_MACaddress.html

[NetJnkie]

Right. I know I'm trying to set one outside the VMware range. But I thought disabling the MAC checking let me do that.

[tallsky]

Using ESX 3.5 Update 3, Licensing and Paid support pending.

But we really need a work-around like disabling ethernetX.checkMACAddress

Any new information would be greatly appreciated.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to the VI: Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

You can not change the MAC address to outside the range for ESX within the VMX, however you can do this within the guest OS as long as your vSwitch portgroup allows MAC address spoofing. I would use a Guest OS method to do this.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

SearchVMware Blog: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/

Blue Gears Blogs - http://www.itworld.com/ and http://www.networkworld.com/community/haletky

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[meltemi]

Is this something that's been fixed in ESXi 4.0? It still didn't work in 3.5.x.

[AndreTheGiant]

Also in vSphere you can choose your MAC address only in the VMware vendor class.

To spoof a different MAC address (as written before), you must use guest tools.

For Windows, for example, you can use Macshift (http://devices.natetrue.com/macshift/).

Andre

[meltemi]

Before posting my original question, I did try changing the MAC address on my linux guest following these directions:

It didn't help. The DHCP discover message still contains the bad MAC. The host virtual network & virtual switch settings are set to allow mac changes. They were set that way by default. Do I need to do anything else to allow MAC spoofing?

[AndreTheGiant]

The ifconfig command is right for change the MAC address of a Linux box.

It must work. Se sure on security policy on vSwitch and also verify with ifconfig that you hare using the right MAC address.

Andre