Unique
Media Access Control (MAC) addresses are determined for dynamically addressable synthetic and
physical network devices by requesting a
MAC address anonymously from a
server acting as an address allocator and
arbiter, confirming the use of the requested
MAC address, and relinquishing the address to the
server for reuse when the
MAC address is no longer needed. Alternatively, an agent with a known or established MAC address may be used to request a unique MAC address for the device from the
server and to inform the server when the device no longer requires the requested MAC address. Also, instead of requesting a MAC address from a server acting as an address allocator and
arbiter, the device instead may send a broadcast
Ethernet packet with a broadcast
source address having a
payload indicating an intent to use a specific MAC address. If another device receiving this broadcast is already using the specific MAC address, then a
broadcast packet is sent indicating a conflict with the device's intended address. In this case, the
original device would send a new broadcast
Ethernet packet with a
payload indicating an intent to use a different specific MAC address. This process repeats until no response or assertion of use of the specific address in the
payload is received by the
original device. These techniques assure that dynamically addressable synthetic devices (such as virtual machines) and
physical network devices do not attempt to use the same MAC address on the same
network link.