Network interface MAC address shuffles on new interface addition
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I'm setting up a pfSense firewall (v2.7.0) on ESXi which is meant to handle an environment with multiple interfaces. The problem is that when I add a new interface (network card) to the VM, it shuffles the MAC addresses among all the interfaces assigned.
For example, if I have three interface cards with the following MAC addresses:
- em0 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:43
- em1 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:4d
- em2 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:67
Now I add a new interface (em3), the MAC addresses will be shuffled:
- em0 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:67 (was earlier assigned to em2)
- em1 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:59 (new MAC address randomly allocated)
- em2 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:43 (was earlier assigned to em0)
- em3 -- 00:0c:29:9d:e6:4d (was earlier assigned to em1)
Since the settings/firewall rules are being set up on interfaces, the MAC address change renders all policies and configurations useless, leading to downtime on the entire network.
All ESXi network adapters are connected with the following settings:
- Status: Connect at power on
- Adapter type: E1000e
- MAC address: Automatic
The MAC address stays the same on the ESXi configuration, though. It seems like the OS that assigns the different MAC addresses after the reboot.
I also tried setting the MAC address spoofing on the pfSense web configurator to help maintain a static MAC address, however, it just leads to duplicate MAC addresses for the interfaces.
I then tried using the ifconfig command to reassign the MAC address manually to the interfaces, however, executing the command returns a 'Bad value' error.
I've been pulling my hair out over this issue for the last 2 days. I have also tried looking all over for a resolution to no avail. Any suggestions will be helpful!