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Understanding static MAC address licensing in Azure

AprilYoho's avatar
AprilYoho
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
May 19, 2020
Many established software companies have tied their licensing to the MAC ADD of your server/computer. This causes a slew of issues such as: replacing hardware in your servers, running multiple networ...
Updated May 20, 2020
Version 2.0
April Edwards
azure
nobkat's avatar
nobkat
Copper Contributor
Sep 12, 2023

Hi @April Edwards,

 

I have similar trouble where I need to set up a VM which has a specific MAC address to run a software, and your article seems to help me. I really appreciate you. However, I stuck some problem and have questions.

 

I tried to set up a secondary NIC for a VM and changed the MAC address of the NIC. (The NIC originally attached is used for communication to the local computer.) But after changing the MAC address of the secondary NIC, the secondary NIC was disconnected virtual network. Is it OK? The next question is about "loopback". I understand that the second NIC is used only for spoofing the MAC address, but how does the software that needs licensing differentiate NICs? Since there are two MAC addresses on the VM, the NIC with the required MAC address seems to be specified somewhere and it seems to have something to do with "loopback". I didn't understand how the "loopback" works. Could you tell me in detail? Do I need other settings for the secondary NIC?