changing mac address

[AngryBob]

is there a way to change your mac address? i understand where it comes from but i hear that it is possible to change it in unix

[zigar]

Searched the web for changing mac address unix. Results 1 - 10 of about 74,200. Search took 0.21 seconds


goooooooooooogle

[Guus]

Erhm, aren't MAC adresses card specific? I thought they were hard-coded in the networkcard...

[souleman]

Guus> Depends on the network card. Some of programmable eeproms, which makes it quite easy to do. Also, some net card drivers support it. It can actully be done with ifconfig if you know what you are doing. Then again, if you didn't know what you were doing, you would type " man ifconfig " and it would tell you how to do it....

[zigar]

baah...ok...from google/computing.net

THe change of the MAC address is not perminant with ifconfig, just for the duration of uptime (for perminant change you need a firmware upgrade ONLY availabel on new cards).

to change MAC address on ethernet card eth0

ifconfig hw

ie.
#ifconfig eth0 hw ether ??:??:??:??:??:??

note only HEX characters are valid in the 12HEX MAC address.

as soule said...newer cards can do this perm...(my linksys router has changeable macs)

[cwk9]

I once saw an old arc net card were you could change the mac address using dip switches on the back.

Can you also change the mac address on wireless network cards? I know lots of wireless networks only let you connect with a recognized mac address.

[linuxcomando]

Alright im not sure why you need to "spoof" a mac address but there are two ways that work.
1. reprogram the eprom on the nic (pain in the ass)
2.ifconfig eth0 hw ether ??:??:??:??:??:??
Hex characters are valid in the 12 hex mac address

[linuxcomando]

Oh....i wonder what happens if you screw up a mac address?

[Guus]

Ghe, I never knew they were adjustable... that could come in handy filtering network traffic...

[linuxcomando]

Never mind about my question
your nic stops working.....
486 come in handy for testing