ifconfig epair0 create
creates epair0a
and epair0b
with a locally administered MAC address (a MAC address where the second-least-significant bit of the MAC address is set to 1). This means that the first octet of the MAC address could start with 02 (binary representation: 0000 0010). epair0a
and epair0b
that end in :0a
and :0b
, respectively. This seems to have relevance for epair(4)'s internal mechanism that maps the a-side of the epair to its b-side.exec.created += "ifconfig epair0a ether 02:de:ad:be:ef:0a";
exec.created += "ifconfig epair0b ether 02:de:ad:be:ef:0b";
epair0b
's new custom MAC address happily presents itself to external devices that depend on consistent MAC addresses while epair(4) is able to map epair0a
to epair0b
, not breaking the connectivity between the a-side and the b-side. ifconfig epair0[a|b]
still shows a different hwaddr
but the external network (check using arp
) sees the custom MAC address as intended.ether Synonymous with link (with some exceptions, see -l).
[...]
link Default, if inet is not available.
lladdr Synonymous with link.