Why change the serial and MAC address?

[Bagpuss]

Hi All,

 

I'm sure that this question has been answered in the forum, but I'm currently unable to find it.

When I try to search, I'm told that the phrase 'mac address' is too common. I guess it must be important, then.

 

My current assumption is that the DSM builds here use a default MAC address and serial number (which seems to be derived from the MAC).

This is presumably not the same as the MAC address on the underlying hardware.

 

If this is so, then it's clear that you need to change this if you are going to run more than one system with XPEnology in the same LAN.

I'm also thinking that there might be some kind of tie in with Synology network services, which rely on unique IDs to access the box from the big wide world.

Can someone confirm this?

 

So, that leads me to the real question. Given that the first three octets of a MAC identify the vendor, do I need to use a MAC from a Synology block?

If so, I can't see any way to be sure that this is unique, which is a problem.

 

Is it simply enough to modify the file to use the MAC address of my underlying hardware, and then derive the serial number from that?

 

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

 

Andy.