Arch Linux

martvefun

Member

From: The Internets

Registered: 2009-12-19

Posts: 179

[solved] Different mac address when restarting NetworkManager

Hello,

I have recently reinstalled arch and I have noticed a strange thing : when I restart NetworkManager service, the mac address of my wireless interface changes (the one for my ethernet interface stays).

$ ip address
...
3: wlp2s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether e6:5a:5e:b6:cc:9c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
$ sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager
$ ip address
...
3: wlp2s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether ce:51:9c:4e:6d:a9 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Any idea what could be causing that and how to stop it?
It may be on purpose but it is causing issues as I am on a network filtering by mac address.

Thanks

Last edited by martvefun (2019-02-05 07:06:21)

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English is not my native language, sorry for the mistakes
Arch amd64, GNOME, Thinkpad

Lupo Alberto

Member

From: Gomel, Belarus

Registered: 2013-11-25

Posts: 84

Re: [solved] Different mac address when restarting NetworkManager

Check your settings of NetworkManager for "Cloned MAC Address" if it disabled or not.
P.S. Read this topic also — https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MA … s_spoofing

Last edited by Lupo Alberto (2019-02-05 06:51:18)

martvefun

Member

From: The Internets

Registered: 2009-12-19

Posts: 179

Re: [solved] Different mac address when restarting NetworkManager

Thanks, I did not know about "cloned mac address" settings.
I have searched a bit and found this blog post talking about the random mac address in NetworkManager being the default behaviour.
As explained in the post, I changed my file /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf to add

[device]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

And now it seems to work !

Last edited by martvefun (2019-02-05 07:17:00)

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English is not my native language, sorry for the mistakes
Arch amd64, GNOME, Thinkpad