VM mac address changes after SRM recovery task

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.x

Issue/Introduction

• Prior to SRM recovery plan, VM had been migrated from one vCenter to another with Cross vCenter migration.

• After SRM recovery, VM MAC address is changed.

• Messages in vCenter logs /var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log similar to the following :

  VM VMNAME has conflict mac [00:50:56:xx:xx:xx] with deny list, new mac [00:50:56:yy:yy:yy]

Environment

• VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x
• Site Recovery Manager 8.8
• VMware Live Recovery 9.0.2

Cause

During Cross vCenter vMotion, the virtual machine's MAC address is added to a MAC address "block list" on the source vCenter Server. This ensures that the VM MAC address will not be reallocated to another VM by the source vCenter Server to prevent a potential address conflict in case the VM is migrated back. When the VM comes back on vCenter outside of a vMotion operation, its MAC address is considered in conflict and changed by vCenter.

Resolution

1. Currently there is no resolution. This feature will be part of a future Site Recovery Manager release.

2. As a workaround you can remove the MAC address from the deny list.

3. To reclaim unused MAC addresses from the deny list, please contact the  Broadcom Support.
   MAC Address Management During Migration Between vCenter Server Systems