On Tue, 2 May 2000, Matthew Dharm wrote:
> On Tue, 2 May 2000, Tim Coleman wrote:
>
> > Isn't there a problem with this in that it is possible (although not
> > necessary all that likely) for two nics to have the same MAC address?
>
> My understanding on this was that it's not possible... the first byte or
> two is assigned to a manufacturer and the rest is supposed to be unique
> within that manufacturer. So all MAC addresses should be unique.
I have two cheap ISA NICs with identical MAC addresses due to a buggy
configuration program that got confused by having both cards in the same
machine, and overwrote the second card's EEPROM with the information
(including MAC addr) meant for the first card.
I had another card once which actually allowed you to set the MAC address
in their setup program! So I wouldn't rely on them to be unique or
particular at all...
As long as duplicates are not both on the same network there should be no
problem using them on the same machine. (I used the box as a quickie
masquerading router, with one card on the internal network and one on the
external.)
-- brion vibber (brion@pobox.com)
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