A hypervisor running on a host machine identifies a first media access control (MAC) address prefix associated with the host machine, wherein the first MAC address prefix comprises one or more bits that are shared by MAC addresses for virtual machines hosted by the host machine. The hypervisor configures the host machine to filter packets based on a first MAC address prefix filter, wherein the first MAC address prefix filter passes packets addressed to MAC addresses that have the identified first MAC address prefix. The hypervisor assigns MAC addresses having the first MAC address prefix to a plurality of virtual machines that will be hosted by the host machine.