Default MAC Addresses

For native instances:

Default MAC address assignments depend on the type of interface.

  • Physical interfaces—The physical interface uses the burned-in MAC address.

  • VLAN interfaces (Firepower 1010 and Secure Firewall 1210/1220)—Routed firewall mode: All VLAN interfaces share a MAC address. Ensure that any connected switches can support this scenario. If the connected switches require unique MAC addresses, you can manually assign MAC addresses. See Configure the MAC Address.

    Transparent firewall mode: Each VLAN interface has a unique MAC address. You can override the generated MAC addresses if desired by manually assigning MAC addresses. See Configure the MAC Address.

  • EtherChannels (Firepower Models)—For an EtherChannel, all interfaces that are part of the channel group share the same MAC address. This feature makes the EtherChannel transparent to network applications and users, because they only see the one logical connection; they have no knowledge of the individual links. The port-channel interface uses a unique MAC address from a pool; interface membership does not affect the MAC address.

  • EtherChannels (ASA Models)—The port-channel interface uses the lowest-numbered channel group interface MAC address as the port-channel MAC address. Alternatively you can configure a MAC address for the port-channel interface. We recommend configuring a unique MAC address in case the group channel interface membership changes. If you remove the interface that was providing the port-channel MAC address, then the port-channel MAC address changes to the next lowest numbered interface, thus causing traffic disruption.

  • Subinterfaces (threat defense-defined)—All subinterfaces of a physical interface use the same burned-in MAC address. You might want to assign unique MAC addresses to subinterfaces. For example, your service provider might perform access control based on the MAC address. Also, because IPv6 link-local addresses are generated based on the MAC address, assigning unique MAC addresses to subinterfaces allows for unique IPv6 link-local addresses, which can avoid traffic disruption in certain instances on the threat defense.

For container instances:

  • MAC addresses for all interfaces are taken from a MAC address pool. For subinterfaces, if you decide to manually configure MAC addresses, make sure you use unique MAC addresses for all subinterfaces on the same parent interface to ensure proper classification. See Automatic MAC Addresses for Container Instance Interfaces.