DoubleCloud.org

Having answered many questions about IP addresses of virtual machines at different occasions, I still see more are coming. I think it’s time to write a blog about it. Hopefully people would search the Internet before raising the question.

First of all, there is a big confusion on the relationship of IP addresses and virtual machines. Many people tend to associate IP addresses with virtual machines, and want to retrieve/change the IP address of a virtual machine.

In fact, a virtual machine is very much like its physical counterpart. It does not have an IP address by itself. In other words, an IP address is NOT an intrinsic attribute of a machine, either virtual or physical. It might have one or more only after an OS is installed. In most cases, it does have one or more IP addresses, which gives the impression that every machine has an IP address.

A virtual machine does have intrinsic attributes such as MAC addresses if NIC cards are configured. Unlike its physical counterpart, a virtual machine’s MAC address can be re-configured. Some software vendors rely on MAC addresses to lock down their licensed software on particular machines. This mechanism can be, therefore, compromised in virtual environments.  Read more... (543 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)