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In /etc/network/interface I want to assign a 64-bit MAC address, but when I do, the MAC address just is a 48-bit random address. I'm using a Cubieboard with Debian 7.0, EMAC is on the hardware, so the MAC address used to be random, but I want it to be fixed. In my router I can only set 64-bit mac addresses.

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  • Is this an IPv6 MAC and if so can you let us have more details please.
    – Chopper3
    Sep 12, 2013 at 19:34
  • I guess it is. The MAC I want to assign is 01:66:66:b2:69:d8:63, this is the MAC my router gave to my server with DHCP. But when I try to put this in /etc/network/interfaces like: iface eth0 inet dhcp\n hwaddress ether <MAC>, it just gives me a new 48-bit MAC at boot.
    – dengsn
    Sep 12, 2013 at 19:46
  • When I use iface eth0 inet6 dhcp, still with the same result.
    – dengsn
    Sep 12, 2013 at 19:48

3 Answers 3

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I can't say this for certain so please take that into consideration but aren't all 64-bit IPv6 MACs just the 48-bit ones with FFFE in the middle?

Also that's a 56-bit MAC you list anyway.

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You need to set a 48 bit MAC address for the device. While some devices like ZigBee and Firewire support 64 bit mac addresses natively, most ethernet devices do not. Instead, the 48 bit MAC address is converted to a 64 bit address by inserting FFFE between the 3rd and 4th sections (right in the middle), so:

00:25:96:12:34:56

becomes either:

00:25:96:FF:FE:12:34:56 or 0025:96FF:FE12:3456

depending on how it's written out.

For that EMAC device, you can either do it with ipconfig or a bootloader line, following the directions here.

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I solved the issue. My router was indeed accepting 56-bit MAC addresses, and that was just the 48-bit MAC with 01: prepended. So I entered the current 48-bit address and made it fixed using hwaddress xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx in /etc/network/interfaces.

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