Behaviour when ethernet MAC is 00:00:00:00:00:00 ?

[Bob Arendt]

Michael Wiktowy wrote:
> Oddly enough, the forgetful NIC does seem to work properly once Fedora
> boots up. The issue is that I can't rely on MAC address identification
> to allow my router to assign the same address (and forward ports to
> it) using DHCP since NetworkManager is picking a random MAC and slowly
> incrementing the ethX device every boot. The secondary issue is that
> it is making a mess in my /etc/sysconfig/networking/ directory by not
> clearing out old entries.
> 
> The only indication I get that it is getting cleared is that Windows
> reports it as having a MAC of 00:00:00:00:00:00.
> 
> I was just wondering if there was another way to address a NIC (PCI
> ID?) to be able to assign it a consistent MAC on each boot.
> 
> /Mike
> 
This happened once to one of our many HP dl380's.  Just one.
And it booted with 0's ~70% of the time.  But otherwise worked.

Add to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
MACADDR="1a:2b:3c:4d:5e:6f"

Assuming it's eth0, and substitute your real MAC address.
If the interface can be programmed at runtime, this should do it.

-Bob