Aug 14, 2014 When you create a VM on VMware ESXi, each network interface of the VM is assigned a dynamically generated MAC address. If you want to change this default behavior and assign a static MAC address to your VM, here is how to do it. Unfortunately you cannot just edit an automatically generated MAC address, because the ranges for manually and automatically generated MAC addresses are different and enforced by VMware. If you want to ensure a MAC address remains the same at all times even if you switch virtual network adapters, you may assign a static MAC address to the VM. The canonical 'correct' way to distribute VM images for VMware vSphere is to distribute.ova files created using ovftool, and then use the vSphere GUI to install the.ova file. This automatically distributes a 'copied' version of the virtual machine that has a different MAC address when deployed. You can also force vCenter Server to generate a new MAC address for the virtual network adapter of your VMs by configuring the virtual network adapter to use a Manual MAC address, and then reconfiguring it to Automatic. Source: VMware KB – Virtual machine MAC address conflicts or have a duplicate MAC Address when creating a virtual machine.
I have some software running on a Windows virtual machine. I am using VMWare as the virtualization technology. The problem comes in with the software's activation / registration. The company who created the software is using the machine's MAC address to uniquely identify the machine during the process.
Whenever I reboot the VM image I get a new dynamic MAC address, which then causes the software to de-activate itself. Is there a way I can setup the VM image so that it will always use the same static MAC address?
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Aaron KVmware Automatic Vs Manual Mac Address 1
2 Answers
Short answer that glosses over the details; VMware will usually provide a unique MAC address for a VM on a network. It will usually provide the same MAC address to a VM so long as the VM is not moved between hosts. In circumstances where this a changing mac address is a problem, you can manually set one.
To manually assign an address, edit the config file for the VM;Remove
and add
XX must be a valid hexadecimal number between 00h and 3Fh, and YY and ZZ must be valid hexadecimal numbers between 00h and FFh
This is how it's done with Server, Workstation, and GSX (and I presume Fusion) The basics are the same for ESX, but what mac addresses you can use are different.
For more, search the VMware knowledge base for the articles
'Setting a static MAC address for a virtual NIC', 'Changing the MAC Address of a virtual Machine' and other articles with 'MAC Address' in their title.
Yes, but you have to edit the VM's config file directly via the COS, with the VM shutdown too (I think).
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