Patent ID: 7843821

Claim:
A computer controlled method for specifying a MAC identifier for a single network interface card, said single network interface card configured to connect to a network through a port, said single network interface card comprising a plurality of universally administered MAC identifiers, a subset of which are activated as active universally administered MAC identifiers, and wherein the single network interface card is configured to accept a data packet received through said port responsive to whether said data packet contains a destination address that matches one of the active universally administered MAC identifiers, said method comprising: receiving a first and a second resource-access request, wherein each resource access request includes a request to associate a slot in the single network interface card with a hardware or software resource; in response to a query sent to the single network interface card for each request, receiving information that indicates whether a slot is available in the single network interface card, wherein the information includes an indication whether the single network interface card can associate multiple universally administered active MAC identifiers with a port, the total number of slots in the single network interface card, and an indication whether the single network interface card has sufficient available slots to satisfy the resource-access requests; in response to a first slot being available for the first resource-access request, reserving the first slot and a first universally administered MAC identifier from said plurality of universally administered MAC identifiers, wherein said first universally administered MAC identifier is associated with a first resource within said single network interface card; in response to a second slot being available for the second resource-access request, reserving the second slot and a second universally administered MAC identifier, which is different from the first universally administered MAC identifier, from said plurality of universally administered MAC identifiers, wherein said second universally administered MAC identifier is associated with a second resource within said single network interface card, and wherein said first and second universally administered MAC identifiers are universally unique; and activating said first universally administered MAC identifier and said second universally administered MAC identifier to enable said single network interface card to accept a data packet containing a destination address that matches either said first universally administered MAC identifier or said second universally administered MAC identifier without said single network interface card being placed in a promiscuous mode.