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How to change the MAC address on a Call Manager 5/6 Server
Posted by Josh under Cisco , Cisco VOIP -After releasing the video tutorial for installing Call Manager 5/6 in VMWare, I received a comment asking how to change the MAC address on the Virtual server. The same person, (DrM) later posted another comment confirming that he had actually changed the address in the Linux OS. I had tried changing the MAC in VMWare with version 5.x but eventually gave up. This tutorial will show you how to change the MAC address in order to duplicate a production environment within VMWare. Without changing the MAC address, it is not possible to completely replicate your CUCM environment in a test lab because the license files are attached to the MAC address.
WARNING: This should not be performed on a Production System! I am not responsible for any damages. Use at your own risk and in a testing environment only!
- Boot the CUCM server with CentOS 5.1 Disk1
- Type ‘linux rescue’ at the boot: prompt
- Use the chroot command to change the root to the CUCM partition
Type 'chroot /mnt/sysimage'
- Edit the eth0 configuration file
vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
- Add or change the MACADDR variable in the ifcfg-eth0 file.
MACADDR=00:11:22:33:44:55
- Save and close (or write and quit) with the ‘:wq’ option inside vim
- Edit the hardware config file
vim /etc/sysconfig/hwconf
- Change the ‘network.hwaddr’ variable
network.hwaddr: 00:11:22:33:44:55
- Save and close (or write and quit) with the ‘:wq’ option inside vim
- Exit Linux rescue mode
- Login with CUCM administation account
- Use cli to verify the mac address has been changed
- You can also check the new mac address in the CUCM OS Administration gui
show network eth0 detail
Show > Network
July 17th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Hey Man,
Not sure if this is works on CCM5.
Every time I enter the ‘vim’ commands as typed above, it creates a new file instead of opening up the existing configs.
Are the file names the same in CCM5 ?
Shoto,
Phil
July 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Philip - That’s strange. I have edited the files on a 5.1 server before. I didn’t notice any differences. Post the output of the following two commands:
ls /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
ls /mnt/sysimage/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
Josh
July 18th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Both those commands tell me that the file/directory does not exist.
It’s ver. 5.1.3a. I also tried re-installing from scratch, and same problem.
If I issue a :dir command, I see all the folders including ‘ccm’ and ‘ect’… I can’t however :cd into the ‘ect’ folder but I can into most of the others… Could it be a permission problem ?
Phil
July 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Philip - Try this one then…
find / | grep ifcfg-eth0
Josh
July 18th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Philip - It shouldn’t be a permissions problem if you have booted into linux rescue mode as described above.
If you used the CUCM Shell Access tutorial , you may need to prefix the commands with ’sudo’.
Example…
sudo vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
Or as someone else suggested, you can use ’sudo bash’ to get constant root shell instead of the user you created.
Josh
July 20th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Hey Josh,
Created a video using the commands you given and showing th outputs :
http://rapidshare.com/files/131194288/Change_Mac.avi
You can download it as a free user.
Still no joy though.
Phil
July 21st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Nevermind…sorted, spelled ‘etc’ as ‘ect’ over and over and over…I’m a tit.
Feel free to delete all my comments
July 21st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I ran through this but by using an Ubuntu disk in recovery mode. I was able to make all the edits and rebooted but when it came back there were disk errors. CM prompted me to insert the CM Recovery Disk and select the option to detect and repair errors, which I did. But it still came back with errors and won’t boot. Any ideas on how to recover? And was I just unlucky, or did I do something wrong? Only thing I can think of is not exiting the Ubuntu recovery mode cleanly.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:50 am
UPDATE: Ran the recovery disk again but this time chose to manually repair the disk. Answered Yes to all the prompts and now it works.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
I am using CallManager 6.1.2.1000-13 on my WMware partion. The above trick does not seems to work on 6.1.1 or 6.1.2. Anybody who got it running, or did Cisco close this loophole already ?
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
vandalay, glad to see you were able to get it to work! Josh
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:17 am
dk90103,
Which step is it failing on specifically?
Josh
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
This is great information. Even I was able to make this work.
The first time I did your change and booted CM the mac did not change. I went back into vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
and removed the space in the MACADDR=00:11:22:33:44:55 command (just like shown here) and then booting into CM showed the correct mac.
Other issues I ran into had to deal with CentOS not being able to mount a SCSI drive. I eventually gave up and went with an IDE drive and all is working.
Thanks.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
dk90103,
We just did it on CM 6.1.1.3000-2 on VMware ESX 3i and got it to work. What part is failing for you?
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Anyone done this on a Presence 6.0 server? We followed the same directions and it worked, but now the server is piss slow.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:52 am
I have followed the steps above. Only difference I have is the CentOS version. I use 5.2, but that should have any impact.
I am able to change the MAC address in both ifcfg-eth0 and hwconf and save these new MAC address values. Once I reboot the server/image the Cisco Red Hat doesn’t pick up the changes and continues to use either the Dynamically assigned VMware address (I use work station 6.0.4) or the burn-in MAC of the NIX in my IBM test server.
If I then reboot the system using the CentOS 5.2 CD I can see that system has saved my MAC-address changes that I did above.
My conclusion so far is that I can alter the 2 files neccessary, but that the system doesn’t seem to pick up the changes during reboot.
I have tried to apply the “trick” on both a WMware image and on a Cisco certified IBM-345 server.
In your description above, I guess that Step 10 “Exit Linux Rescue Mode” is the same as rebooting the server/image right ?
July 24th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Gents,
I did what RS recommended in post no 13 (removed a space) and now it’s working for me aswell.
Great trick. Thx a lot
July 24th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Thanks RS and dk90103! I have changed the instructions to remove the space on the MACADDR variable assignment.
Josh
August 14th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
in vmware how to go gui after logging in cli & how to start gui in vmware.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Frances,
1) Open a web browser on your PC.
2) Insert the ip address of the call manager in the address bar.
3) Click on the Cisco Unified Communications Manager link.
Josh