Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Random MAC address option

[Ian Jackson]

Daniel P. Berrange writes ("Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Random MAC address 
option"):
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:15:41PM +0200, Riku Voipio wrote:
> > I take this means -net macaddr=macrandom will give the random
> > macaddr after this patch? please document this magic in
> > qemu-doc.texi and --help.

Surely `macaddr=macrandom' is tautologous ?  What's wrong with
`macaddr=random' ?

> Generating a random MAC address everytime you boot a guest seems like
> a very odd thing todo. MAC addresses should be  randomly generated
> once, and then fixed for the duration of existance of that guest,
> across reboots.If you generate a random MAC on every boot, the OS will
> think its NIC has been removed, and a new one added on every boot.

Whether or not this is a problem depends on your operating system.
Indeed having a new MAC address each time can have privacy advantages
in certain IPv6 configurations!

If you want the MAC address to be persistent, where should qemu store
the MAC address ?

Ian.