How to manage VM MAC Addresses with the GlobalImageData.XML file in MED-V v1

Article
01/24/2011

There is no option to manage the VM MAC address using the MED-V Client Interface or workspace policy. During the first time setup phase MED-V automatically deletes the old VM MAC address and then creates new random MAC address. This cannot be overwritten or controlled using the *.VMC file. If you set a static address in the *.VMC file, it will be overridden. If you would like for a MED-V workspace to maintain a permanent MAC address you will need to use the GlobalImageData.XML file to set this.

GlobalImageData.xml is a file which resides under the image directory and contains information which is shared by all versions of an image. The location is in the <MED-V Images Root>\<Imagename> directory and affects all versions of the image. Two important values are the <DesiredMachineName> and the MacAddress> elements.

The <DesiredMachineName> is the auto-generated name of the MED-V workspace computer name. In order to make sure all versions of the same image have the same name, the random name chosen for the image is stored in the <DesiredMachineName> field of this file.

The <MacAddress> field is where you can set a static MAC address for the VM that will remain constant. This can be created after the image has been deployed and after first-time setup or, you could incorporate the creation into the first-time setup by using scripts or an external tool to set the VM's MAC address by setting the <MacAddress> field.

It is important to format the MAC address properly with the correct vendor code for Virtual PC. The MAC address is a hexadecimal value of 6 bytes which starts with 0003FF, the vendor code for Virtual PC, for example 0003FF0A0B0C. Also note that configuring two machines with the same MAC won't work, and the second machine with MAC will not be able to get network connectivity. The following is an example of a custom GlobalImageData.XML file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ImageGlobalData xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<DesiredMachineName>MEDV-GEX4M52F</DesiredMachineName>
<MacAddress>00:03:FF:A2:04:10</MacAddress>
</ImageGlobalData>

Steve Thomas | Senior Support Escalation Engineer

How to manage VM MAC Addresses with the GlobalImageData.XML file in MED-V v1

Additional resources