weird mac address format

weird mac address format

[Daniel Castelhano]

Hi,
 
Does anyone know why iptables would log a mac address in this fashion:
 
Jun 12 22:00:42 servername kernel: FW filter INPUT Chain:IN=ext OUT= MAC=02:00:00:00:00:09:00:06:2a:73:f0:70:08:00:45:00:00:28:94:7b:40:00:35:06:db:02:9c:37:85:
58:44:a3:70:1f:01:bb:da:e1:87:0f:30:c4:00:00:00:00:50:04:c2:10:83:0d:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:87:61:75:e8:92:64:cd:6e:f6:ce:91:bc:ed:ee:37:6e:b3:db:64:8b:18:59
 SRC=<some source ip> DST=<some destination ip> LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=53 ID=38011 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=443 DPT=56033 WINDOW=49680 RES=0x00 RST URGP=0

Its been determined the mac= portion is a combined string for:
2:00:00:00:00:09:00:06:2a:73:f0:70: --> SMAC and DMAC address combined
08:00:  --> type IP
45:00:00:2c: --> IP v4 header, TOS and Length fields
a2:d7:00:00: --> ID, flags and frag offset
f2:06:50:c1: --> TTL, protocol (TCP) and checksum 
d0:4e:50:22:44:a3:70:1f: --> SrcIP and DstIP
00:50:e3:99: --> SrcPort (HTTP) and DestPort
 
We are running iptables 1.2.9. Only packets from the filter input chain get logged in this fashion and we don't know why. Such a long mac address makes it hard to analyze the logs and figure out what's going on. 
 
Why does the mac get logged this way? And is there anyway to prevent it from logging in this manner?

Thanks,
Dan

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