How to Ensure That the MAC Address of Each Interface Is Unique - Configuring and Managing Network Components in Oracle® Solaris 11.4

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SPARC: How to Ensure That the MAC Address of Each Interface Is Unique

Every SPARC based system has a system-wide MAC address, which by default is used by all interfaces. However, some applications require every interface on a host to have a unique MAC address. Certain types of interface configuration such as link aggregations and IP network multipathing (IPMP) similarly require that interfaces must have their own MAC addresses.

The EEPROM parameter local-mac-address? determines whether all interfaces on a SPARC based system use the system-wide MAC address or a unique MAC address. The following procedure describes how to use the eeprom command to check the current value of the local-mac-address? parameter and change it, if necessary.

Before You Begin

Ensure that your role has the appropriate rights profile to perform this procedure. See Using Rights Profiles to Perform Network Configuration.

Determine whether all of the interfaces on the system currently use the system-wide MAC address.
```
# eeprom local-mac-address?
local-mac-address?=false
```
Change the value of the local-mac-address? setting to true.
```
# eeprom local-mac-address?=true
```
When you reboot the system, the interfaces that have factory-installed MAC addresses will use these factory settings rather than the system-wide MAC address. Interfaces without factory-installed MAC addresses will continue to use the system-wide MAC address.

Check the MAC addresses of all of the interfaces on the system.

Look for cases where multiple interfaces have the same MAC address.

$ dladm show-linkprop -p mac-address
LINK PROPERTY    PERM VALUE             EFFECTIVE         DEFAULT           POSSIBLE
net0 mac-address rw   0:14:4f:f9:b1:a9  0:14:4f:f9:b1:a9  0:14:4f:f9:b1:a9  --
net3 mac-address rw   0:14:4f:fb:9a:d4  0:14:4f:fb:9a:d4  0:14:4f:fb:9a:d4  --
net2 mac-address rw   0:14:4f:f9:c:d    0:14:4f:f9:c:d    0:14:4f:f9:c:d    --
net1 mac-address rw   0:14:4f:fa:ea:42  0:14:4f:fa:ea:42  0:14:4f:fa:ea:42  --

(Optional)If necessary, manually configure the remaining interfaces so that all interfaces have unique MAC addresses.
```
$ dladm set-linkprop -p mac-address=mac-address interface
 
```
Note - This step is only required if two or more network interfaces have the same MAC address.
Reboot the system.