[BUG] Ignored `mac_address` field

[davidedellagiustina]

Description

I have a macvlan network and a Docker container (deployed through compose) connected to it. I recently updated to compose V2, and since then the mac_address property of my container does not get applied anymore (it used to work fine before).

Compose file:

version: '3.7'

services:
  blocky:
    container_name: blocky
    hostname: blocky
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: spx01/blocky:latest
    mac_address: 2c:4d:54:00:00:01 # MAC address specified here
    networks:
      macvlan:
        ipv4_address: ${BLOCKY_IP} # Env variable properly instantiated
    volumes:
      - ./config/config.yml:/app/config.yml:ro
      - /certificates/blocky/:/certs:ro
    environment:
      TZ: 'Europe/Rome'

networks:
  macvlan:
    external: true

Output of docker inspect blocky (only relevant parts):

[
    {
        "Config": {
            "MacAddress": "2c:4d:54:00:00:01" // Apparently it gets correctly parsed from the compose file
        },
        "NetworkSettings": {
            "MacAddress": "", // But then it does not get set
            "Networks": {
                "macvlan": {
                    "IPAMConfig": {
                        "IPv4Address": "192.168.1.224"
                    },
                    "Gateway": "192.168.0.1",
                    "IPAddress": "192.168.1.224",
                    "IPPrefixLen": 22,
                    "MacAddress": "02:42:c0:a8:01:e0" // And a random one is assigned
                }
            }
        }
    }
]

Output of docker inspect macvlan (only relevant parts):

[
    {
        "Name": "macvlan",
        "Scope": "local",
        "Driver": "macvlan",
        "Containers": {
            "23368919c7ccd73f64f02d7db560c256fd74c528c70e721b72f1d8e8660a384b": {
                "Name": "blocky",
                "EndpointID": "e5dc69402099d43938deafef3172a288abfe26cd2f31702595600f2d2252a8a8",
                "MacAddress": "02:42:c0:a8:01:e0", // Cusom MAC address is not applied
                "IPv4Address": "192.168.1.224/22" // (Even though IP is)
            }
        },
        "Options": {
            "macvlan_mode": "bridge",
            "parent": "enp0s31f6"
        }
    }
]

Docker version

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           24.0.4
 API version:       1.43
 Go version:        go1.20.5
 Git commit:        3713ee1
 Built:             Fri Jul  7 14:50:55 2023
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          24.0.4
  API version:      1.43 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.20.5
  Git commit:       4ffc614
  Built:            Fri Jul  7 14:50:55 2023
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          1.6.21
  GitCommit:        3dce8eb055cbb6872793272b4f20ed16117344f8
 runc:
  Version:          1.1.7
  GitCommit:        v1.1.7-0-g860f061
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0

Docker compose version

Docker Compose version v2.19.1

[simonmcnair]

I tried this and got the following. Is it possible it is working ? How do you know it isn't pls ?

[davidedellagiustina]

@simonmcnair My setup differs from yours (as far as I can see) in the following:

• I am using a macvlan network, while you seem to be using the default adapter in your container;
• I am using compose file version 3.8, while you are using version 2.1 (not sure this matters, though).

In your case it seems that the mac address gets assigned properly, while in my case both running ip a inside the container, and inspecting the docker network using docker inspect <network_name> reports a randomly assigned MAC address. In addition, notice that docker inspect <container_name> reports the correctly partes MAC in the Config section, while it is not reported in the NetworkSettings section. This makes me suspect that something inside compose is not reading the parsed configuration correctly, perhaps.

[simonmcnair]

Have you tried exactly the same thing without macvlan ? I wonder if it is specific to that driver ?

[simonmcnair]

It would also be worth having your macvlan terminal lines to recreate at my end

[davidedellagiustina]

Have you tried exactly the same thing without macvlan ? I wonder if it is specific to that driver ?

I was trying this exact thing right now and I confirm that the MAC address get correctly assigned if I use the default docker network driver.

[davidedellagiustina]

It would also be worth having your macvlan terminal lines to recreate at my end

In order to create a macvlan network within Docker you can use the following:

docker network create -d macvlan \
    -o parent=<physical_interface_name> \
    -o macvlan_mode=bridge \
    --subnet=<subnet_cidr> \
    --gateway=<network_gateway_ip> \
    --ip-range=<containers_ip_range> \
    <network_name>

where:

• <physical_interface_name> is the name of your hardware network interface that the macvlan will be bound to;
• <subnet_cidr> is the CIDR of the network you're on;
• <network_gateway_ip> is the IP address of the gateway for your network;
• <containers_ip_range> is a subrange of <subnet_cidr> and is the addressing space you are reserving for the Docker containers;
• <network_name> is the name you want to give to the Docker network.

Edit: Additionally, if you want to be able to reach the containers from the Docker host itself, you need to add --aux-address="host=<host_ip>" (with <host_ip> being an address within <containers_ip_range> that you want to reserve for the Docker host), and then add a virtual interface on your host.

[ndeloof]

Can you run and connect a container to this network with expected mac address assigned using a plain docker run --mac-address <xx> ... command ?

[davidedellagiustina]

@ndeloof Apparently yes:

$> docker run --mac-address 2c:4d:54:00:00:01 --network macvlan --name test -it alpine
#> ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
17: eth0@if2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP,M-DOWN> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP
    link/ether 2c:4d:54:00:00:01 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.1.226/22 brd 192.168.3.255 scope global eth0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Edit: Moreover, if I docker run a container without specifying a custom MAC address, it gets assigned a random (perhaps sequential, actually) MAC in the range 02:42:c0:a8:01:XX.

[brhahlen]

I'm running into the same issue with my macvlan network. Some containers have a "random" MAC address (which confused me when going through my network).

[brhahlen]

Did some tests, found out that when running docker compose version 2.18.1, the behaviour works as intended.
Compose version 2.19.1 doesn't work as expected either.

[brhahlen]

@davidedellagiustina Are you able to test with version 2.18.1 of docker compose to see if the behaviour works as intended there?

@ndeloof I can reliably reproduce the behaviour with version 2.18.1 (works correctly) and higher.

Docker Compose version v2.19.1

$ docker compose config
services:
  emulatorjs:
    container_name: emulatorjs
[...]
   mac_address: 02:42:AC:11:21:81
   networks:
      lan_net:
        ipv4_address: 192.168.2.181
[...]

$ docker inspect --format='{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.MacAddress}}{{end}} - {{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}} - {{.Name}}' $(docker ps -aq) | sort -g
[...]
02:42:c0:a8:02:b5 - 192.168.2.181 - /emulatorjs

MAC Address does not match.

$ docker compose version
Docker Compose version v2.18.1
$ docker compose config
services:
  emulatorjs:
    container_name: emulatorjs
[...]
   mac_address: 02:42:AC:11:21:81
   networks:
      lan_net:
        ipv4_address: 192.168.2.181
[...]

$ docker inspect --format='{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.MacAddress}}{{end}} - {{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}} - {{.Name}}' $(docker ps -aq) | sort -g
[...]
02:42:ac:11:21:81 - 192.168.2.181 - /emulatorjs
[...]

[davidedellagiustina]

@brhahlen I confirm that I am able to reproduce what you observed, i.e. expected behavior with compose 2.18.1 and broken MAC with compose 2.19.0.

[lwmacct]

[root@localhost ~]# 
[root@localhost ~]# cat docker-compose.yaml 

version: "3"
networks:
  ikuai-lan1:
    name: ikuai
    external: true

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx:latest
    mac_address: 02:42:ac:11:00:02
    networks:
      ikuai-lan1:
        ipv4_address: 192.168.100.103   
    volumes:
      - /data:/data
    entrypoint: ["/docker-entrypoint.sh"]
    command: ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

[root@localhost ~]# 
[root@localhost ~]# docker inspect root-nginx-1 | jq '.[0].NetworkSettings.Networks'
{
  "ikuai": {
    "IPAMConfig": {
      "IPv4Address": "192.168.100.103"
    },
    "Links": null,
    "Aliases": [
      "root-nginx-1",
      "nginx",
      "2ee33548ec53"
    ],
    "NetworkID": "9cf30dfeb4830f36dad3e3bc4fb9746f2f79aa94fcb980194b4e740b0c0ae2c4",
    "EndpointID": "28bfd1bb4d6049383f4f47f8afafa90d6e679bcb0067cf9c10f5cd1564644b1f",
    "Gateway": "192.168.100.1",
    "IPAddress": "192.168.100.103",
    "IPPrefixLen": 24,
    "IPv6Gateway": "",
    "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
    "GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
    "MacAddress": "02:42:c0:a8:64:67",
    "DriverOpts": null
  }
}

[root@localhost ~]# docker network  inspect ikuai | jq
[
  {
    "Name": "ikuai",
    "Id": "9cf30dfeb4830f36dad3e3bc4fb9746f2f79aa94fcb980194b4e740b0c0ae2c4",
    "Created": "2023-08-28T15:00:56.946872908+08:00",
    "Scope": "local",
    "Driver": "macvlan",
    "EnableIPv6": false,
    "IPAM": {
      "Driver": "default",
      "Options": {},
      "Config": [
        {
          "Subnet": "192.168.100.0/24",
          "Gateway": "192.168.100.1"
        }
      ]
    },
    "Internal": false,
    "Attachable": false,
    "Ingress": false,
    "ConfigFrom": {
      "Network": ""
    },
    "ConfigOnly": false,
    "Containers": {
      "0621d2ccd80db9ff8d1ee57a0a0024dc52f409c57cdc53ce50c94a9b4b27811d": {
        "Name": "node-ipes-101",
        "EndpointID": "6480cff3e57150cdd0bf2b6c31786410d090213220327399e64ded8d05065191",
        "MacAddress": "02:42:c0:a8:64:65",
        "IPv4Address": "192.168.100.101/24",
        "IPv6Address": ""
      },
      "2ee33548ec531c826a45e3c7b79e00fe67aa91974d9046ec30e3d7abf50a44c9": {
        "Name": "root-nginx-1",
        "EndpointID": "28bfd1bb4d6049383f4f47f8afafa90d6e679bcb0067cf9c10f5cd1564644b1f",
        "MacAddress": "02:42:c0:a8:64:67",
        "IPv4Address": "192.168.100.103/24",
        "IPv6Address": ""
      }
    },
    "Options": {
      "macvlan_mode": "bridge",
      "parent": "enp2s0f0"
    },
    "Labels": {}
  }
]

[root@localhost ~]# 
[root@localhost ~]# docker compose version
Docker Compose version v2.20.2
[root@localhost ~]# 

[root@localhost ~]# 
[root@localhost ~]# docker-compose -v
Docker Compose version v2.18.1
[root@localhost ~]# 

The lower version v2.18.1 works