[Lxc-users] OUI

[Gordon Henderson]

On Tue, 11 Oct 2011, Brian K. White wrote:

> Looks like the cheap and easy to get OUI is 36 bits long, leaving only
> 12 bits for the user.
>
> Is 4096 possible unique MAC's enough?

Is it actually an issue, or just for vanity?

I guess one issue is of-course making sure you don't pick something that 
clashes with something else on your LAN... (So if you've no Cisco kit, use 
a Cisco one ;-)

Once upon a time (20+ years back), I worked for a company who registered 
their own OUI and I wrote/admind their assignment database.... And, 
knowing that that company made less than 100 boards with an ethernet chip 
on it, and knowing that the probability of ever seeing that product 
powered up again is zero, I've been using their old OUI ... but it's very 
low - as in < 0000FF low ... however, I've not had many issues with the 
lock-ups that I'm reading here - I think I may have experienced one or 2 
periods of a brief pause when stopping a container, but I'd just put it 
down to something else, but it's not been more than a few seconds - 
irritating, but not the end of the world... So I'm probably going to carry 
on using it.. (and I feel lucky)

Looking at the IEEE standard paper 802-2001... There is mention of some 
OUI's in the paper as examples... I've looked them up and one isn't 
assigned...

357b12

(the other, acde48 is assigned, but I'm wondering if that one will stay 
unassigned ;-)

Trying to find more - e.g. an rfc1918 for OUIs and I found rfc2153 which 
suggests CFxxxx: might be usable, however searching more finds

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/nanog/users/110162

which suggests it might not be suitable... It also suggests that others in 
the past have wanted the same!

Gordon