M1XEP MAC Address changed

W

whodah

Member
Hi all,
 
I had my Elk setup for a bit, then decided to relocate it so I took it down. Then it sat in my office for about a year  before I actually did the relocation and is now hooked up again. I had a heck of a time trying to get the M1XEP to communicate. The same ethernet cable was no longer working. Well, I could ping it just fine with not a single dropped packet and responses all 1ms, but ElkRP would time out with: System did not respond. Connection may have been terminated". So, I tried diagnosing various things, you know, the typical. New network cables, bypass switches, direct connect, yaddi yaddi. Sometimes it would work, most time it would "System did not respond". (A similar message when accessing it via a browser too. I could bring up the interface, but then I'd get the same message when attempting to enter the java page.) All the while, pings were fine.
 
Then, all of a sudden, nothing. No pings, no response. This was on one of the various configurations of switches/network-cables that had been somewhat reliably working. Reboot [switch|Elk|M1XEP], reboot reboot reboot. Nothing. I did a "find" on the M1XEP setup and... there was my M1XEP -- but with a different MAC address! The first 6 digits of the MAC are the same, the last 4 changed and do not match the sticker on the M1XEP chip. I thought for sure this M1XEP (that has maybe 1 month's use on it but is over a year old now) was bad, and who knows: it still may be... But, I rolled with it, and used that MAC. I assigned it the same IP as before. Viola, things started working. And reliably. And... ready for this? On the old Ethernet cable and through the same switches as it was working on a year ago but all of a sudden stopped working on... Heck, now the M1XEP/Elk can't find a cable/switch it doesn't like! :D It has been working reliably now for about a week. I keep expecting it to fail and having to order a new M1XEP or something, but so far, so good.
 
So... Umm... Ya. Heh! 
 
Just thought I'd share in case this helps someone in the future as I didn't see any posts like this one except an unanswered post on the installers Elk forums that went unanswered of someone else who had a M1XEP MAC Address change. Even though I'm cruising along now, I suppose there is a question here too: anyone ever seen anything like this? Or just a generic question: thoughts?
 
Thanks!
 
whodah said:
Hi all,
 
I had my Elk setup for a bit, then decided to relocate it so I took it down. Then it sat in my office for about a year  before I actually did the relocation and is now hooked up again. I had a heck of a time trying to get the M1XEP to communicate. The same ethernet cable was no longer working. Well, I could ping it just fine with not a single dropped packet and responses all 1ms, but ElkRP would time out with: System did not respond. Connection may have been terminated". So, I tried diagnosing various things, you know, the typical. New network cables, bypass switches, direct connect, yaddi yaddi. Sometimes it would work, most time it would "System did not respond". (A similar message when accessing it via a browser too. I could bring up the interface, but then I'd get the same message when attempting to enter the java page.) All the while, pings were fine.
 
Then, all of a sudden, nothing. No pings, no response. This was on one of the various configurations of switches/network-cables that had been somewhat reliably working. Reboot [switch|Elk|M1XEP], reboot reboot reboot. Nothing. I did a "find" on the M1XEP setup and... there was my M1XEP -- but with a different MAC address! The first 6 digits of the MAC are the same, the last 4 changed and do not match the sticker on the M1XEP chip. I thought for sure this M1XEP (that has maybe 1 month's use on it but is over a year old now) was bad, and who knows: it still may be... But, I rolled with it, and used that MAC. I assigned it the same IP as before. Viola, things started working. And reliably. And... ready for this? On the old Ethernet cable and through the same switches as it was working on a year ago but all of a sudden stopped working on... Heck, now the M1XEP/Elk can't find a cable/switch it doesn't like! :D It has been working reliably now for about a week. I keep expecting it to fail and having to order a new M1XEP or something, but so far, so good.
 
So... Umm... Ya. Heh! 
 
Just thought I'd share in case this helps someone in the future as I didn't see any posts like this one except an unanswered post on the installers Elk forums that went unanswered of someone else who had a M1XEP MAC Address change. Even though I'm cruising along now, I suppose there is a question here too: anyone ever seen anything like this? Or just a generic question: thoughts?
 
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Let me begin by saying that I have never heard of a MAC address changing on any ehternet device but there are a lot of things that I don't know.
 
Are you saying that the MAC that was discovered by ElkRP software is different than the MAC that is on the label on the Elk M1XEP? If this is true and assuming that the label on the device has not been changed then maybe.....
 
1 There are 2 M1XEP's on the system and you are looking at the wrong one (which is very unlikely)
 
2  the actual MAC of the device has changed. I have never seen this before but I suppose it is possible that a firmware update could have changed the MAC on the deivce,
 
Have you performed a firmware upgrade on the XEP?
 
Mike.
 
This may be a dumb question but are you certaing that you are looking at the MAC address and not the IP address?
 
I have had this experience too! In my case the MAC address changed to something that made me feel pretty certain that it was going to die...it was something like 8B:AD:BA:DB:AD:BA:DB:AD, spelling BAD over and over.  It certainly does not match the MAC address printed on the XEP sticker.  But it still works, and has been working for a year and a half since the MAC address change.
 
I've never heard of a MAC address changing; they are generally embedded by the manufacturer and are specific to each device. Not to say that it isn't impossible, but they should be unique identifiers to the specific piece of hardware (e.g. serial number); some manufacturers actually use the MAC address as their serial number.
 
Further, the first 6 characters of a MAC address form an Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI). Thus, you can enter the first 6 characters into OUI lookup tools to determine the manufacturer of a particular device:
 
http://www.wireshark.org/tools/oui-lookup.html
 
This is particularly helpful if you are working on a [poorly documented] network, and are unsure of what various devices are after a network scan, as the OUI lookup can provide you with manufacturer information.
 
I just followed the above post by:
 
1) Opening a command prompt window and pinging my XEP
2) Running the ARP command, arp -a
3) Reading the OUI for my XEP
4) Entering that OUI into the page listed above
 
I know I've done this before, but I wanted to do it again to be certain of the result. My XEP has a OUI of 00:40:9D, which is registered to DIGIBOARD, INC.
 
drvnbysound said:
I've never heard of a MAC address changing; they are generally embedded by the manufacturer and are specific to each device. 
Click to expand...
 
Most ethernet circuitry has a "BIA" or "Burned In Address" which cannot change, but can also have the current address set to any MAC value the driver author chooses.
 
There's an old protocol (Decnet V4) that actually required, as part of joining the network, that the MAC address be computed from the higher level Decnet address (think IP address); the protocol did not contain the equivalent of ARP so each device had to respond to a MAC address computable, as opposed to query-able.
 
Other devices use it for debugging, monitoring, etc. You'll see some devices speaking of "cloning" a MAC address, same idea.
 
Now none of that explains WHY the code on the card would change the address, but it is generally possible for the driver to do so, and least on most hardware.
 
Linwood said:
Most ethernet circuitry has a "BIA" or "Burned In Address" which cannot change, but can also have the current address set to any MAC value the driver author chooses.
 
There's an old protocol (Decnet V4) that actually required, as part of joining the network, that the MAC address be computed from the higher level Decnet address (think IP address); the protocol did not contain the equivalent of ARP so each device had to respond to a MAC address computable, as opposed to query-able.
 
Other devices use it for debugging, monitoring, etc. You'll see some devices speaking of "cloning" a MAC address, same idea.
 
Now none of that explains WHY the code on the card would change the address, but it is generally possible for the driver to do so, and least on most hardware.
Click to expand...
 
Sure. I certainly know of the ability to MAC address clone, etc. I meant that I've never seen a static device/appliance change it's MAC address on it's own, as mentioned above.
 
Hi all,
 
Thanks for the replies.
 
 
mikefamig said:
Let me begin by saying that I have never heard of a MAC address changing on any ehternet device but there are a lot of things that I don't know.
 
Are you saying that the MAC that was discovered by ElkRP software is different than the MAC that is on the label on the Elk M1XEP? If this is true and assuming that the label on the device has not been changed then maybe.....
 
1 There are 2 M1XEP's on the system and you are looking at the wrong one (which is very unlikely)
 
2  the actual MAC of the device has changed. I have never seen this before but I suppose it is possible that a firmware update could have changed the MAC on the deivce,
 
Have you performed a firmware upgrade on the XEP?
 
Mike.
Click to expand...
 
Another example of someone experiencing this, but no replies:
http://m1dealer.elkproducts.com/index.php?module=phpwsbb&PHPWSBB_MAN_OP=view&PHPWS_MAN_ITEMS%5B%5D=1205
 
Yes, the MAC address discovered by ElkRP is now different than the label on the M1XEP. It used to be the same.
 
Firmware update: yes, I am on the latest firmware.
 
There is only the single M1XEP on the network. I don't even own a second one. :D
 
mikefamig said:
This may be a dumb question but are you certaing that you are looking at the MAC address and not the IP address?
Click to expand...
 
Yup yup, I'm sure I'm talking about MAC addresses here, not IP addresses. FWIW, I'm in IT and deal w/ network, firewalls, IP, Cisco IOS, pfsense, DD-WRT, yaddi yaddi, all the time. I'm the guy people usually call when "they" (friends, family, 3rd-removed acquaintances, ha!) are having problems on the network. I don't mean that to sound egotistical, just giving you an idea of my networking skill set. 
 
standon said:
I have had this experience too! In my case the MAC address changed to something that made me feel pretty certain that it was going to die...it was something like 8B:AD:BA:DB:AD:BA:DB:AD, spelling BAD over and over.  It certainly does not match the MAC address printed on the XEP sticker.  But it still works, and has been working for a year and a half since the MAC address change.
Click to expand...
 
Very interesting, I hadn't noticed that. Mine is too! Clever, heh! Mine is currently:
00-40-9D-BA-DB-AD
 
Ugh, been struggling with this for a couple weeks now.  Same thing happened to me.  I assign the M1XEP a static IP via DHCP (through my router) using it's MAC address.  Internet has been down because it was assigning a random IP to the NEW MAC address.
 
I've come to the conclusion that this ELK hardware is not as reliable as people have lead me to believe.  I've seen two weird things happen with it now, so I'll take that with a large grain of salt from now on...
 
Back up and running with my new MAC that doesn't match the sticker...
 
geogecko said:
Ugh, been struggling with this for a couple weeks now.  Same thing happened to me.  I assign the M1XEP a static IP via DHCP (through my router) using it's MAC address.  Internet has been down because it was assigning a random IP to the NEW MAC address.
 
I've come to the conclusion that this ELK hardware is not as reliable as people have lead me to believe.  I've seen two weird things happen with it now, so I'll take that with a large grain of salt from now on...
 
Back up and running with my new MAC that doesn't match the sticker...
Click to expand...
 
Heya geogecko,
 
Curious, does your MAC match mine literally now?
00-40-9D-BA-DB-AD (00409D-BAD-BAD)
 
FWIW: Mine has been running just fine now since my last post, basically a year ago, with this changed MAC address with the term 'BAD' in it. Hopefully yours does too!
:)
 
Thanks,
-Who Dah?
 
Huh. Plot thickens! It might be beneficial for others if you report back in a bit (month, few months) to let us know if it changed again or stayed at that *97, if you wouldn't mind. :D
 
Will do, for sure. I'm not sure what happened to it, but about a month ago, I was having issues with my internet, and over about a week of troubleshooting what I thought was my Ooma VoIP, it was actually the ELK. I pulled up my router's log, and about every 8 seconds, the ELK was trying to get out to an external IP address, but the router was denying access. I pulled the plug on everything else, and couldn't figure it out, until I pulled the plug on the M1XEP, and it stopped! Apparently it just needed to be rebooted, because I haven't seen the problem since...
 
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