Force VMWare to Generate a new MAC Address

16 July, 2008 at 2:13 pm by Phil Wiffen · Filed under Troubleshooting, Virtualisation

How to force VMWare to regenerate a MAC address for a guest OS.

  1. Shut down the Guest OS.
  2. Open up the .vmx file.
  3. Delete the following lines (that begin with…): 
    ethernet0.addressType
uuid.location =
uuid.bios =
ethernet0.generatedAddress =
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset =

     

  4. Boot up the Guest OS again, and it should generate new details in the vmx file (I’d check afterwards to be doubly sure).

 

The most common scenario for wanting to do this is if you’ve used a “template” Guest OS and copied it to multiple PCs, but accidentally clicked “I moved this Virtual Machine” rather than “I copied this Virtual Machine” when first booting the Guest OS in something like VMware Player.

If you tell VMware that the Guest OS was copied, it automatically generates new UUID info and MAC addresses. If you tell VMware that you moved the Guest OS, all unique identifiers are left alone (including the MAC address). By performing the steps above, you can get VMware to generate you some new, unique identifiers, and stop weirdness on your network ;)

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8 Comments »

  1. Abelard said,

    27 August, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    Thanks, Phil, that was exactly what I needed!

  2. atomsnine said,

    11 January, 2010 at 11:48 pm

    Hi Phil,

    The procedure you detailed above works correctly. I shutdown the guest, delete the MAC and UUID info, save the change, restart and the entries are regenerated. My problem remains however – The entries generated are identical to the previous.

    I have two vm’s that have identical MAC’s and UUID bios info.

    As you eloquently stated – I am experiencing some network weirdness because of the duplicate MAC. Ideas?

  3. Sebastian said,

    18 January, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    Great solution, I found it very useful. Cheers

  4. Phil Wiffen said,

    21 January, 2010 at 10:32 am

    atomsnine: From memory, if you move one of the VMs in the host’s filesystem, and then open it up in VMware Workstation it should ask you whether you moved it, or whether you copied it. If you say you copied it, it’ll make new a new UUID and hopefully a different MAC too!

  5. Paul Rowley said,

    29 January, 2010 at 9:55 am

    Hi Phil,

    Found this article, however…..

    What I need to do is assign a static mac address, is this possible in VMware player? and if so how?

    Thanks,

    Paul

  6. Phil Wiffen said,

    29 January, 2010 at 10:38 am

    Try this….

    Edit the .vmx file and locate the following generated MAC address:

    Ethernet0.addressType =
    and
    Ethernet0.generatedAddress =

    Change the value for ethernet0.addressType from “vpx” to “static”

    Change ethernet0.GeneratedAddress to ethernet0.Address

    Change the current MAC to a MAC address in the following range:
    00:50:56:00:00:00-00:50:56:3F:FF:FF

    I got the instructions from here: http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/04/vmware-configuring-static-mac-address.html

  7. Tobias said,

    17 February, 2010 at 3:37 pm

    Thanks for sharing this. I made a linked clone (of a linked clone) with Workstation 7 and for some reason it did not generate new uids/macs.

    Regards, Tobias

  8. rob said,

    22 August, 2010 at 10:52 am

    Hi Phil,

    Thanks for sharing this. It worked a treat.

    regards,
    rob

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