Arch Linux

tony5429

Member

Registered: 2006-03-28

Posts: 1,017

How to Permanently Change MAC Address

I need to change my MAC address on a new laptop to be able to connect to a network at work. I can change it with this,

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 ether (new mac address)
ifconfig eth0 up

And if I check with "ifconfig | grep HWaddr" I can tell that the MAC address has been changed. However, as soon as I restart the computer it goes back to the original MAC address. Does anyone know if there's a way I can make that change permanent? I'm working on Arch64 on a new Acer Aspire 3810T. Thanks in advance!

vi3dr0

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2009-03-22

Posts: 208

Re: How to Permanently Change MAC Address

I simply use macchanger. How about putting it into rc.local?

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Thinkpad T61p : T7700 | 4GB RAM | nVidia FX 570M | Intel 4965
Arch64 @ Openbox

broch

Banned

From: L.A. California

Registered: 2006-11-13

Posts: 975

Re: How to Permanently Change MAC Address

/etc/rc.conf
eth0="eth0 hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:FF dhcp"

archman-cro

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2010-04-04

Posts: 943

Website

Re: How to Permanently Change MAC Address

You mean to change mac at boot? Sure, you can do it.
My way would be making a bash script which contains the code you wrote above (plus, add "ifconfig | grep HWaddr" at the end) and starting that script at boot. For Openbox, in example, would be to place your script to run in ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh with this line: "/path/to/scriptname.sh &".

So, make a new file, and get this in:

#!/bin/bash

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 ether (new mac address)
ifconfig eth0 up
ifconfig | grep HWaddr

@broch: cool way too My way is the *shite* (long) way.

Cheers!

tony5429

Member

Registered: 2006-03-28

Posts: 1,017

Re: How to Permanently Change MAC Address

Thanks for all the info! It looks like I can just tell the network admin my new mac address Thanks anyway!