Re: [PATCH] Add a check attribute on the mac address element

On 13/07/2020 13:41, Michal Privoznik wrote: > On 7/13/20 11:44 AM, Bastien Orivel wrote: >> This is only used in the ESX driver where, when set to "no", it will >> ignore all the checks libvirt does about the origin of the MAC address >> (whether or not it's in a VMWare OUI) and forward the original one to >> the ESX server telling it not to check it either. >> >> This allows keeping a deterministic MAC address which can be useful for >> licensed software which might dislike changes. >> > > While you get bonus points for remembering to document this change, it > should go into a separate patch, because keeping it in a single one > usually leads to conflicts on backports. Oops, didn't know about that, will split in a v2 once we resolved the other question. > But anyway, looking at virVMXFormatEthernet() - why don't we set all > MACs 'static'? Alternatively, we can use @mac_generated member to > determine whether the MAC address was provided by user or > automagically generated (and use static/generated addressType > accrodingly)? Mostly because I didn't want to break any existing script/setup that relies on the fact that libvirt would set the address type to what it is right now. For example, right now, providing a MAC address in the @00:0c:29@ range makes the ESXi server generate a new MAC address on define.

I can imagine that some people outside always provide the same MAC address to define their machine and rely on libvirt/ESXi to generate a new one in that range for them.