Active5 years, 9 months ago

In Esxi Mac Address Manual Vs. Automatic Best Practices
In Esxi Mac Address Manual Vs. Automatic Best Practice Test

The following examples show when you might set a static MAC address. Virtual network adapters on different physical hosts share the same subnet and are assigned the same MAC address, causing a conflict. Because ESXi virtual machines do not support arbitrary MAC addresses, you must use the example format. Retaining UUID, MAC address, while moving VM from VMware Workstation to ESXi. Ask Question Asked 5 years, 8 months ago. What is Best Practices for time management in RHEL/CentOS 7 in VMware? Hot Network Questions Why did I lose on time with 3 pawns vs Knight. Shouldn't it be a draw?

VMware Workstation 9, VMware ESXi 5.1, Windows 7 x64 VMNo vCenter access, but I could deploy a vCVA if need be.

In Esxi Mac Address Manual Vs. Automatic Best Practices

I am able to move the VM from Workstation to ESXi just fine. Using the VM->Manage->Upload option, didn't try scp or similar yet.

My challenge is that I need to preserve the UUID, MAC address, and any other information that is unique to the source VM.

Once I upload the VM to ESXi a customization is automatically happening assigning a new MAC address, UUID, etc., how can I avoid that from happening?

I need the VM on ESXi to be exactly the way it was on Workstation. I know that I can manually set the MAC on ESXi, but that doesn't prevent whatever other customizations are happening.

In Esxi Mac Address Manual Vs. Automatic Best Practice Test

UPDATE:joeqwerty's comment about the UUID was good, however I was unable to change the MAC address to what it needed to be. On Workstation it's 00:0C:29:63:3E:BA, when I try to set a manual address in ESXi it suggests the first 6 to be 00:50:56: when I enter the Workstation address instead I receive the following error message:

Failed to start the virtual machine.Module DevicePowerOn power on failed.Could not set up 'macAddress' for ethernet0.Invalid MAC address specified. 00:0C:29:63:3E:BA is not an allowed static Ethernet address.It conflicts with VMware reserved MACs.

This is an issue with an unpatched 5.1 install and has been fixed in 5.1 U2, and 5.5, see http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2035707

UPDATE 2:Even though the above link states that this issue has been resolved in 5.5 it has not actually been resolved and the MAC address restriction still shows up until one manually edits the vmx file to disable the MAC address check as explained in the above link.

Reality Extractor

Reality ExtractorReality Extractor

1,3401 gold badge13 silver badges22 bronze badges

1 Answer

You can manually assign a MAC address (as you've stated) and you can manually specify the UUID by editing the .vmx file of the VM.

joeqwertyjoeqwerty

98.6k5 gold badges69 silver badges151 bronze badges

In Esxi Mac Address Manual Vs. Automatic Best Practices

In Esxi Mac Address Manual Vs. Automatic Best Practice Test

1 Answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged vmware-esxivmware-workstation or ask your own question.