R80.10 MAC Magic autodetection - when does it take place?

[Carl_Neidhardt1]

sk25977 says that "Starting in Gaia R80.10, the 5th byte of the Source MAC address (MAC magic) in all types of CCP packets (CCP Delta Sync packets, CCP Health Check packets, forwarded packets) is assigned automatically.  During the initial configuration of the cluster members, they apply the following algorithm to set the MAC magic value..."

What is meant by "the initial configuration of the cluster members"?  Does that happen just once at the creation of the cluster?  Or is it checked every time the cluster is started?  Or continuously during cluster operation?

What happens if we configure a cluster off the network first, then attached it to a vlan where another cluster already has the value 1?  How often is a duplicate value detected?

[PhoneBoy]

All, of course, excellent questions.
I'll see if I can get someone in R&D to comment.

[PhoneBoy]

The MAC Magic mechanism starts to work at the initial configuration of the cluster members and continues to probe the net as long as the member is operational. Meaning, if conditions change (e.g. a new conflicting cluster comes online), it will be detected right away and the Magic MAC value will be changed accordingly.