Hyper-V virtual machine - static MAC address...

[Koldov]

I have been asked to install some software on our print server to provide toner levels to our support provider.

 

In the instructions it says that I have to assign a static MAC address to the Virtual Server:

 

"Please note if you are using a Virtual Server you will need to make sure the MAC address is set to static as by default a VM has a dynamic MAC address, if it is left as dynamic this will cause the software to go offline as it binds the licence code to the MAC."

 

So, I am going to remote in tonight and shut down the Virtual Server.

 

On the Host I go Hyper-V Manager > Select Server > Setting > Network Adapter > Advanced Features > Choose 'Static' - restart the server...

 

Is there any reason anything could go wrong with this, or anything I need to look out for?

[Boredguy]

Nothing will go wrong. We have a couple of servers in Hyper-V that have a "static" MAC address, since Impero will complain bitterly if it gets a different MAC address after a reboot and reset the licence state as the details don't match.

[Davit2005]

I don't know about Hyper-V but VMWare published a range of safe MAC addresses that you could manually assign without fear of conflict but it's up to you to keep a record of what you assign to not get use the same mac address twice :-) . VMWare have a power shell syntax you can run to see what MAC addresses you have allocated I assume Hyper-V can do the same somehow.

 

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-ADFECCE5-19E7-4A81-B706-171E279ACBCD.html

 

Some info here https://www.deploymentresearch.com/configuring-the-hyper-v-mac-address-pool-for-a-lab-environment-and-finding-duplicates/

Edited January 17, 2022 by Davit2005

[Koldov]

Ah yes! That was it, I knew there was a bell going off in the back of mind (duplicate MAC address).

 

I wonder what the chances of it actually are....?

[tdk1069]

I had this when our Autodesk Inventor license server went offline due to a change in mac ! (Completely slipped my mind it was mac bound) I just (hyper-v) made it static and left it with the one it had generated when I got the license key to save me having to regenerate it. Never had a problem since.

[Jawloms]

Nothing will go wrong. We have a couple of servers in Hyper-V that have a "static" MAC address, since Impero will complain bitterly if it gets a different MAC address after a reboot and reset the licence state as the details don't match.

 

Oh THAT'S why ours lost it details on occasions! Thank you!

[Boredguy]

Oh THAT'S why ours lost it details on occasions! Thank you!

 

Yep it was on their knowledge base last time I checked, but it's often the same for any service thats using a MAC as part of the activation method as they were often designed for physical servers in mind more so than Virtual machines where details could change (plus you might need to migrate it to another box due to hardware failure etc)

[Norphy]

Ah, the randomly changing MAC address feature on Hyper-V. That one was fun when it decided it was going to happen to our Smoothwall once. Windows seems to be a little more tolerant of its NIC changing MAC address, Linux/Smoothwall decided it was an entirely different network adapter and created a new binding for it. So I had to go into the CLI, work out what the MAC addresses were for the old adapters, see which were bound to which interface and put it all back. That was a fun afternoon.

 

My own fault, admittedly, for creating it with dynamic MAC addresses in the first place, but still majorly irritating.