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MAC addresses may also be called physical addresses or hardware addresses. This number is meant to be globally unique (but in some cases is not…). Keep following us for more Linux professional tutorials.What is a MAC address? A MAC address (or media access control address) is a number assigned to a network interface on a computer. Thank you for reading this article showing how to change the MAC address in Linux. Another important point to remember is that except for the macchanger method (If you configured it to work automatically), both ip and ifconfig original addresses will be restored after reboot. Also remember the last technique (ifconfig) will only work on old Linux distributions or systems with the net-tools package installed. Always when changing your MAC, make sure you are not filtering other addresses, or you may get disconnected until reestablishing the allowed address. Linux offers different methods to change your MAC, the three most popular ones are explained above in this article. ConclusionĪs you can see, changing your MAC address may have advanced purposes, but the task itself is pretty easy and can be executed by any Linux user.
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Three formidable methods to change your MAC in Linux. To check your current MAC address, run the command shown in the screenshot below.Īs you can see in the screenshot below, the MAC address was changed successfully. How to Manually Find and Change the MAC Address in Linux Another usage example would be cloning a MAC address of another device forcing it to disconnect from a network and to connect again, useful to sniff a password when the device reconnects.Īfter reading this article, you will know how to change your MAC address both manually and automatically, with a specific MAC address or with a random one.Īll steps described in this tutorial include screenshots, making it easy for any Linux user to follow them. This is useful, for example, to be able to connect routers or networks allowing specific MAC addresses, or to avoid leaving traces. Yet, while the MAC address is permanent from the hardware side, there are some workarounds to change it before the network or other devices. Contrary to the IP, the MAC is permanent and assigned from the factory. While the IP is the software address, the MAC is the hardware or physical address. Like the IP address, the MAC address is unique for each device. Network cards have a minimum of two addresses to be identified, at least one IP address (You can assign more than one), and a physical address named MAC address.
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This tutorial explains how to find and change the network card MAC address on Linux.
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