The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

arch_archer · 2010-05-19 23:04:45

Hello friends! Congrats to me , today I'm entering the Arch World!
Before installing on real hardware, I decided to give it a try in VirtualBox. I'm excited, Arch is so simple and cool!
I have 3 questions so far.

1. My provider locks the accounts to MAC addresses, so I must set the correct one before contacting the dhcp server of the provider, where should I insert the mac changing command or maybe I must create a script and execute in the DAEMONS section of the rc.conf before the network?

2. Currently I'm running other Linux distribution and I have several XFS filesystems which I want to keep (i.e. mounted under /opt, /data/music, /data/vm, etc..) and some other XFS partitions which I would like to format for using with Arch (i.e. /boot, /home, /, /usr, /var) and also would like to encrypt them (and also the swap). How can I do that? And is it possible to encrypt also the partitions where there is already some data (e.g. /data/docs)?

3. Do I need separate /usr/local ? For example, under DragonFly BSD the user installed packages are going to /usr/local, the original system ones are in /usr, so it's OK to have a small /usr and a large /usr/local, but for example, in Ubuntu everything go to /usr and /usr/local remains unused. What about Arch?

Thank you.

Added after 5 minutes:
Oh, I forgot to ask about one more thing, is there some way of installing Arch without IPv6 support or I must disable it after installation? Thanx.

Last edited by arch_archer (2010-05-19 23:13:07)

thestinger · 2010-05-19 23:16:44

ipv6 is a kernel module (there's a bunch of net modules, for different protocols like bluetooth), and you can blacklist it after you install to keep it from being loaded

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/IPv … the_Module

also, the only thing that's going to end up in /usr/local is stuff you put there yourself (scripts, etc), the arch way is to use pkgbuilds/makepkg rather than make and make install, so afaik the only things that might end up there by installing things are symlinks to /opt in a few packages

EDIT: about /usr, unless you plan on mounting it as read-only or different mount options than /, I would just leave it as part of / (just a personal preference though)

EDIT2: here's an article on encryption, you might find what you need there http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sys … r_dm-crypt

Last edited by thestinger (2010-05-19 23:21:30)

Xyne · 2010-05-19 23:20:16

1. This works, although I currently run a script from /etc/rc.local to configure my mac addresses.

3. It's recommended that you package anything that you want to install on your system so that pacman can keep track of it. /usr/local is not used. Packaging is usually simple. Check the following wiki pages to get started:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Creating_Packages
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Build_System

If you package something new, you should consider uploading it to the AUR as well. You can read about the AUR here.

arch_archer · 2010-05-19 23:45:36

Thank you, friends, for quick answers. Wiki articles are great, I should had searched/read them before posting some of my questions..

Last edited by arch_archer (2010-05-19 23:48:08)

n0dix · 2010-05-19 23:54:01

1. You can use the program macchanger (is in AUR), to change the mac address and then restart/up the network interface.

arch_archer · 2010-05-20 00:02:14

@n0dix
Thanks, but to me, macchanger is useful for setting some random valid/real mac addresses, for setting a static one there is no need for additional software, ifconfig is just enough. I needed not the way how to change the mac, but the place where to do that the most simple way (e.g. without changing /etc/rc.d/network), Xyne's provided link is what I need.

Last edited by arch_archer (2010-05-20 00:06:33)

eldragon · 2010-05-20 00:36:01

arch_archer wrote:

@n0dix
Thanks, but to me, macchanger is useful for setting some random valid/real mac addresses, for setting a static one there is no need for additional software, ifconfig is just enough. I needed not the way how to change the mac, but the place where to do that the most simple way (e.g. without changing /etc/rc.d/network), Xyne's provided link is what I need.

hmm, check rc.conf

if im not mistaken, in rc.conf, there is a line of arguments passed directly to ifconfig to setup the network, cant you just add it there?

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-19 23:04:45

The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

#2 2010-05-19 23:16:44

Re: The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

#3 2010-05-19 23:20:16

Re: The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

#4 2010-05-19 23:45:36

Re: The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

#5 2010-05-19 23:54:01

Re: The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

#6 2010-05-20 00:02:14

Re: The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

#7 2010-05-20 00:36:01

Re: The most Arch way of changing MAC before starting the network

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