I have been asked by many VMware Administrators about how MAC addresses are assigned to Virtual Machine?. We all aware that first 3 octets will be 00:50:56. The first three parts never change. This is the VMware Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI). How do other 3 octets are generated?. This may be the biggest question in our mind? Let’s discuss How MAC addresses are assigned to VMware Virtual Machines by the vCenter server. This post only applies to the VM MAC generation, in which ESXi host is managed by vCenter Server. ESXi host which is not managed by the vCenter server will have the different mechanism to generate the MAC address for Virtual Machine.

Vmware Vcsa Setup Manual Mac Address 1

Vmware Vsca Setup Manual Mac Address

Hey, I have the exact same issue. I have an old legacy Win2k server with FLEXlm on it. I did a P2V into ESXi 3.5. After I set the MAC address as you did I lost my network connectivity. A reboot didn’t help. I was wondering if you also reconfigured anything at the VM level for the MAC or did you leave those settings at the defaults (auto MAC).

How vCenter Assigns Virtual MAC Address to VMware Virtual Machine?

As we aware that, First 3 Octects will be 00:50:56. This is the VMware Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI). How does 4th octet of VM MAC address are calculated? Let’s begin the Calculation.

Vmware Vsca Setup Manual Mac Address

Vmware Vsca Setup Manual Mac Address 2016

4th Octet of MAC = (128+ vCenter Instance ID) Convert it to Hexadecimal

To get the vCenter Server Instance ID -> Login to vSphere Client ->Administration -> vCenter Server Settings -> Runtime Settings. Note down the vCenter Server Unique ID. My vCenter Server Unique ID is 24.

How to Calculate 4th Octet of the VM MAC Address?

Vmware Vsca Setup Manual Mac Address

The automatically generated MAC address has the fourth octet is equal to 128 + the vCenter instance ID converted to hexadecimal.

Vmware Vcsa All 6.7.0

4th Octet of MAC = (128+ vCenter Instance ID) Convert it to Hexadecimal

= 128+24 = 152

4th Octet of VM MAC = 98 (Conversion of 152 to Hexadecimal)

I have confirmed the Same from the few of Virtual Machine MAC Address. 4 octet is assigned as “98”.

The last two bytes are assigned in the mechanism so that each MAC address is assigned would be unique. I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for Reading!!!. Be Social and share it on social media, if you feel worth sharing it.

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