Spoofing MAC address

[super_kev]

I'm following the directions found in this article over at Mac OS X hints about spoofing a mac address.

I'm running 10.4.2 on a dual 2 G5, and I typed in "sudo ifconfig en0 ether" and "ifconfig en0 ether" and got the same results (sudo is "sudo", not my user name) which gave me my MAC address.

I then tried changing my MAC address by doing "ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff" where the letters are new address I wanted, and I got: "ifconfig: malformed ether address"

Then I tried "username (my real user name) ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff" and got: "-bash: username: command not found"

Then I tried "sudo ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff" and it asked me for my password, then I entered it and it froze the computer. This has happened several times, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Any help would be appreciated.




Also, is there a good article that explains what each set of numbers/letters are? I was messing around and I found that when changing the last 6 letters/numbers (using this link) it doesn't change the equipment manufacture, but that's as far as I got.

 

[yellow]

sudo is "do as superuser", which means, do as if I was root.. it has nothing to do with username, but the shell must be owned by an admin user.

It should not freeze when you do this, unless you're doing it remotely via ssh?

I'd start by reading the man page on ifconfig first before asking anything else. You should familarize yourself with what you're trying to do.

Then you should ask yourself why you want to change your MAC address. When you reboot the change will not last.

What do they logs say after it freezes?

 

[super_kev]

sudo is "do as superuser", which means, do as if I was root.. it has nothing to do with username, but the shell must be owned by an admin user.

It should not freeze when you do this, unless you're doing it remotely via ssh?

I'd start by reading the man page on ifconfig first before asking anything else. You should familarize yourself with what you're trying to do.

Then you should ask yourself why you want to change your MAC address. When you reboot the change will not last.

What do they logs say after it freezes?

I managed to get it to work shortly after my first post, using the sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr xx:xx:x... command. Today I needed to change it (the computer has been restarted many times since then) and using both the lladdr and ether after sudo ifconfig en0, the computer froze like it did the first time. I repaired permissions, ran some maintenance scripts (Onyx) restarted, and still no cookie. I don't see any crash logs that mention anything related to the crash, but maybe I'm not looking for the right ones?

Any ideas of what's wrong? The question isn't whether I should change my MAC address or not (I've read some long debates about this on these forums)... all I'm trying to figure out is why my G5 freezes when it seems to work with other computers.

Thanks. 🙂

 

[yellow]

The question isn't whether I should change my MAC address or not (I've read some long debates about this on these forums)... all I'm trying to figure out is why my G5 freezes when it seems to work with other computers.

Yeah.. that doesn't change the reason why I'd like to know why you feel the need to do this.

 

[840quadra]

Yeah.. that doesn't change the reason why I'd like to know why you feel the need to do this.

Not sure about the Poster but,

I did this because of rules and regulations from my all powerful ISP. I sometimes need to sit directly off of my cable modem to bypass other traffic on my local network, and to get low latency network connections.

My ISP will only allow a direct connection from one MAC address and requires that you call in to add / remove / change an active MAC address. In my state it is quite common for small ISP's to do this.

 

[yellow]

And I know WHY (generally) people want to do this, I jsut want to hear it from the OP.

The point being I won't knowingly help anyone do anything illegal.

 

[840quadra]

And I know WHY (generally) people want to do this, I jsut want to hear it from the OP.

The point being I won't knowingly help anyone do anything illegal.

Some times I forget how technical you are, and I tend to be the same way 🙂 .

I wasn't trying to insult, I guess the forums are slow and I am just posting to hear myself type 🙁 .

 

[super_kev]

If I have a car, I could use it to do mainly one of two things: 1) Drive into town without hurting people, and 2) drive into town running over people along the way. Now, if I called an autoshop and complained that the car wasn't starting, and if the mechanic knew that the starter was bad, would he ask me if I was going to kill people with this car after it was fixed? No, he wouldn't, because it is assumed that people are responsible. 🙂

For what it's worth, I found the answer to my solution. With the network cable unplugged, the computer freezes. However, when connected to the network, the command works. I find it weird that you have to be connected to a network in order to be able to change the MAC address on your computer, but so be it.

 

[yellow]

If I have a car, I could use it to do mainly one of two things: 1) Drive into town without hurting people, and 2) drive into town running over people along the way. Now, if I called an autoshop and complained that the car wasn't starting, and if the mechanic knew that the starter was bad, would he ask me if I was going to kill people with this car after it was fixed? No, he wouldn't, because it is assumed that people are responsible. 🙂

That's the worst attempt at parallel reasoning I've ever read. Glad you figured it out. Good luck with it.

 

[super_kev]

That's the worst attempt at parallel reasoning I've ever read...

Thanks, I try my best. 🙄 😀

 

[camomac]

If I have a car, I could use it to do mainly one of two things: 1) Drive into town without hurting people, and 2) drive into town running over people along the way. Now, if I called an autoshop and complained that the car wasn't starting, and if the mechanic knew that the starter was bad, would he ask me if I was going to kill people with this car after it was fixed? No, he wouldn't, because it is assumed that people are responsible. 🙂

maybe you should take the bus instead.