Problem with static MAC address during booting a Win 2k3 64 Bit OS

[van_Eck]

Hi,

we have a Port Security in the LAN of our Company. Therefore we need VM with static MAC addresses. All Virtual Machines work fine except Win 2k3 64 Bit machines.

During the boot event this machines generate a suspect MAC address (e.g. 60:60:00:50:56:xx instead of 00:50:56:xx:xx:xx), and the Port connects to the Server will be blocked from the switch.

ESX Server 3.5.0 Build 77234 on Fujitsu Siemens Primergy Tx 200 S4 with Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5708 1000Base-T

Is this problem known, or is there a solution?

Regards Stefan

[jhanekom]

Was discussed some time ago here: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/52174

There was a bug in early releases of ESX 3.0 that caused invalid RARP packets to be generated, but that was apparently fixed.

There was another workaround at the end of the thread that suggests ensuring that the virtual switch is set to reject any forged MACs - is that set in your case?

If you can consistently reproduce the problem, it may be worthwhile opening a support case with VMware.

[van_Eck]

Hi jhanekom,

thank you for your answer. I will try this tomorrow and get back to you.

Regards Stefan

[van_Eck]

Hi jhankom,

i tried the workaround to reject any forged MACs. That helps me in my case. Thank you.

Regards Stefan

[jhanekom]

Glad it helped. Still a bit concerning, though. It does mean the MAC is being generated by one or more virtual machines, and not somewhere else by ESX.

Do you have 32-bit VMs on there as well? Can you confirm that the problem only happens when a 64-bit VM boots?

If so, there is something else we can do... VMware doesn't ship a special driver for the network card in 64-bit guests. Instead, it relies on the Intel e1000 driver that ships with Windows. It may be worthwhile updating the driver to a more recent version from the Intel site and see if that resolves the problem?

[van_Eck]

Hello,

I can confirm that it only comes to such cases when I start a 64 bit VM.

Your hint with the Network Card Driver, and update the ESX Server to the last Build will I try when we take a new hardware in a few weeks.

Thanks again Stefan