RandomMacAddress

The RandomMacAddress transformer is developed to populate specified database columns with random MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. This transformer is particularly useful for simulating network hardware data, testing applications that process MAC addresses, or anonymizing real network device identifiers in datasets.

Parameters

Name	Description	Default	Required	Supported DB types
column	The name of the column to be affected		Yes	text, varchar, macaddr, macaddr8
keep_null	Indicates whether NULL values should be preserved	false	No	-

Description

Utilizing a sophisticated algorithm or library for generating MAC address strings, the RandomMacAddress transformer injects random MAC addresses into the designated database column. Each generated MAC address follows the standard format of six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by colons (e. g., "01:23:45:67:89:ab"), ensuring plausible values for network device simulations.

Example: Populate random MAC addresses for the network_devices table

This example shows how to configure the RandomMacAddress transformer to populate the mac_address column in a network_devices table with random MAC addresses, enhancing the realism of simulated network device data.

RandomMacAddress transformer example

- schema: "public"
  name: "network_devices"
  transformers:
    - name: "RandomMacAddress"
      params:
        column: "mac_address"
        keep_null: false

With this configuration, every entry in the mac_address column will be assigned a random MAC address, replacing any existing non-NULL values. Setting the keep_null parameter to true allows the preservation of existing NULL values within the column, accommodating scenarios where MAC address data may be intentionally absent.