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changing my mac address....

charlestrippy

charlestrippy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 29, 2006
386
0
Tampa, Florida
So I need to change my MAC address..I'm not too sure how to do this.
I have a Linksys WRT54G router and running OS X

Is there a way I can change my mac address??

Thank you very, VERY much! I really need the help :confused:
 
Some routers have the function of mimicing your machine's MAC address - check the manual. This can be useful for times when your broadband service is tied the the MAC address of a specific machine. Clone that address into the Router and you may not have to get the provider to reprovision the service.
 
Well,
My little brother got our IP address banned from tagworld.com and I want to go to my site but it's not working - a friend said if you changed your MAC address that it would work but I'm not sure how -
I went into my router setup and found "mac address clone" and clicked enabled and clicked the button "clone your pc's mac" however - if it's cloned...it still wont let me on the site - do I adjust it from here?

and if so - which numbers do I change?

IE If it looked something like:)
00:14:51:ED:BE:E6

What do I change it to to make it work?

thanks for the help (hopefully!!)
 
Counterfit said:
I'm pretty sure websites don't block access based on MAC address.
Click to expand...


Well,
I can't get to it anywhere on my network (os x or xp), however, if I go to a different network it'll work. Also, a friend had this happened to him - and he switched his mac address and he said he got it working.
 
***UPDATE***

Okay,
so this is weird - if I unplug the internet cable from the router and directly plug it into the computer - the site loads fine...it's got to be a "mac address issue" - how do I edit it so I can change the mac address or something so I don't have to unplug from the router every time? any ideas?
 
charlestrippy said:
***UPDATE***

Okay,
so this is weird - if I unplug the internet cable from the router and directly plug it into the computer - the site loads fine...it's got to be a "mac address issue" - how do I edit it so I can change the mac address or something so I don't have to unplug from the router every time? any ideas?
Click to expand...

see skunk's post...unless you do the router/cloning thing, you can't change a MAC address. It's specific to the hardware and set at the factory.

it may be that you were able to access the website without the router because your ISP issued you a new IP address. When websites block access, they typically block either a specific IP address or a specific domain.
 
beatsme said:
see skunk's post...unless you do the router/cloning thing, you can't change a MAC address. It's specific to the hardware and set at the factory.

it may be that you were able to access the website without the router because your ISP issued you a new IP address. When websites block access, they typically block either a specific IP address or a specific domain.
Click to expand...


but if I am on the same ip but I just bypass the router and plug directly to my computer - the site will work...

it just doesn't work when running through my router...which is what is weird...

that's weird there is no way to change a mac address or anything.. i thought there had to been some way
 
charlestrippy said:
but if I am on the same ip but I just bypass the router and plug directly to my computer - the site will work...
it just doesn't work when running through my router...which is what is weird...
that's weird there is no way to change a mac address or anything.. i thought there had to been some way
Click to expand...

What makes you think that your router's IP address is the same as your Macs?

In fact, if your router had its routing ability turned on, then they are GUARANTEED to be different, as the router would be doing NAT and your Mac would have the 'internal' IP address, not the external one. In that scenario, check and see if your Mac is acquiring its settings from the DHCP server.
What you have done by plugging in the Macintosh is to force it to get a brand new IP address from the ISP's DHCP server.

Normally, the router would have the ISP issued IP address and the Mac would simply get a private IP from the router. This way, the ISP only ever sees the router's IP, not the Mac.

ISP > 24.65.xxx.aaa > Router > 192.168.xxx.xxx > Macintosh

now

ISP > 24.65.xxx.bbb > Macintosh


IF the ISP has blocked the MAC address instead of the IP address, it still holds true


ISP > Router on MAC 12.34.56.78.90 > Macintosh

ISP > Macintosh on MAC 78.90.12.34.54


AND, as posted earlier, there IS a way for many routers to change, or spoof, their MAC address. But you'll have to read the manual.
 
knome said:
you can change the mac address from terminal using if config.
Click to expand...

if the machine supports it, which (at least as far as Apple goes) in many cases it does not, unless you modify the kernel. It's a pandora's box that's best left alone...IMHO
 
Errm... Maybe you blocked your IP address, rather than your MAC address. If it works by plugging the phone lead into your computer, you'd be connecting by dial-up, not by your DSL/cable as you would through the router, therefore your IP address would be different, not MAC address.
 
so it looks like I got it working:

all I did was I logged into my router - went to status - found my mac addy....

went to clone mac address...typed in my mac address (as found on the status page) and just altered the last letter from F4 or whatever to F5 -

works perfectly now :)

thanks for all the advice!
 
skunk said:
God knows what'll happen if you ever get within range of another computer which shares your new MAC address...
Click to expand...

I'd change it again =)

It's not a permanent change anyway. When you reboot it reverts back to the manufacturers mac address.

James
 
skunk said:
God knows what'll happen if you ever get within range of another computer which shares your new MAC address...
Click to expand...

Pretty extremely unlikely; given that there are 2 to the power of 48 different MAC addresses out there, and the two computers would have to be in the same network to cause problems.
 
plus - i changed the mac addy via the router - the apple computer's mac addy for the network card is untouched...it's just "spoofing" the mac for the router
 
What is most likely happening is, you have an IP from the cable company that is tied to the MAC address of the router and that IP has been blocked by the website. When you changed the MAC address on your router, you got a new IP address from the cable company that has not been blocked by the website. Same would hold true for the Mac that you pulled directly into the cable modem.

The Ethernet frame with your MAC address in it is stripped off when it gets to your router.
 
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