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

On 7/13/20 1:50 PM, Bastien Orivel wrote: > > > 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. This doesn't sound right. If they provide a MAC address we should guarantee it, if they don't provide address we should generate one, that suits hypervisor's needs. Pino, you have more experience with ESX than I do, do you know whether we could do the switch to mark MAC addresses static/generated according to @mac_generated?