Chassis and Power Supplies
Managing MAC Addresses on the Switch
OmniSwitch 7700/7800 Hardware Users Guide
April 2005
page 2-39
Managing MAC Addresses on the Switch
Your OmniSwitch 7700/7800 is shipped with thirty-two (32) factory-installed MAC addresses. These
MAC addresses, which are stored on an EEPROM card in the chassis, are used by the switch as unique
identifiers for the following functions:
•
Base chassis MAC address
•
Ethernet Management Port (EMP)
•
802.1X authentication
•
VLAN router ports
Similar to IP addresses, MAC addresses are assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
and distributed to users in sequential blocks. A sequential block of MAC addresses is referred to as a
MAC address
range
.
The switch’s EEPROM contains one factory-installed MAC address range. As mentioned above, this
default range contains 32 MAC addresses. The first—or
start
—MAC address in this range is always
allocated as the base chassis MAC address. The last—or
end
—MAC address is always allocated for the
Ethernet Management Port (EMP). The
second
MAC address is allocated for 802.1X authentication.
For information on VLAN router ports and MAC address allocation, refer to
MAC Range Guidelines
•
Because MAC range 1 contains addresses that are automatically allocated for switch functions (base
chassis, 802.1X, and EMP), you cannot delete this range at any time.
•
The factory-installed 32 MAC addresses are sufficient for most network configurations. However, if
you require additional MAC addresses for your network, you may purchase additional MAC addresses
from Alcatel. Contact your Alcatel representative for more information.
