How to Change Your MAC Address on Windows, Linux, and Mac

Here we can see, “How to Change Your MAC Address on Windows, Linux, and Mac”

The manufacturer assigns a device’s MAC address, but it’s not hard to change—or “spoof”—those addresses once you get to. Here’s how to roll in the hay and why you would possibly want to.

Each network interface connected to your network—whether it’s your router, wireless device, or network card in your computer—has a singular media access control (MAC) address. These MAC addresses—sometimes mentioned as physical or hardware addresses—are assigned within the factory, but you’ll usually change the addresses in software.

What MAC Addresses Are Used For

At the rock bottom networking level, network interfaces are attached to a network using MAC addresses to speak with each other. When a browser on your computer must grab an internet page from a server on the web, for instance, that request passes down through several layers of the TCP/IP protocol. The online address you type gets translated to the IP address of the server. Your computer sends the request to your router, which then sends it out onto the web. At the hardware level of your network card, though, your network card is merely watching other MAC addresses for interfaces on an equivalent network, and it knows to send the request to the MAC address of your router’s network interface.

In addition to their core networking use, MAC addresses are often used for other purposes:

• Static IP Assignment: Routers allow you to assign static IP addresses to your computers. When a tool connects, it always receives a selected IP address with an identical MAC address.
• MAC Address Filtering: Networks can use MAC address filtering, only allowing devices with specific MAC addresses to attach to a network. This isn’t an excellent security tool because people can spoof their MAC addresses.
• MAC Authentication: Some Internet service providers may require authentication with a MAC address and only allow a tool thereupon MAC address to attach to the web. You’ll get to change your router or computer’s MAC address to attach.
• Device Identification: Many airport WiFi networks and other public WiFi networks use a device’s MAC address to spot it. For instance, an airport WiFi network might offer a free half-hour then ban your MAC address from receiving more WiFi. Change your MAC address, and you’ll get more WiFi. (Free, limited WiFi can also be tracked using browser cookies or an accounting system.)
• Device Tracking: Because they’re unique, MAC addresses are often wont to track you. Once you walk around, your smartphone scans for nearby WiFi networks, and it broadcasts its MAC address. Renew London used trash bins within London to trace people’s movements around the city supported their MAC addresses. Apple’s iOS 8 will use a random MAC address whenever it scans for nearby WiFi networks to stop this type of tracking.

Bear in mind that every network interface has its own MAC address. So, on a typical laptop with both a WiFi radio and a wired Ethernet port, the wireless and wired network interface each has its own unique MAC addresses.

Change MAC Address in Windows 10

In Windows 10, you’ll change the MAC address from the configuration panes of the network card in Device Manager, but some network cards might not support this feature.

1. Open the instrument panel by clicking on the “Search bar” next to the start menu, then type “Control Panel.” Click on the search result to open.
2. From the instrument panel, click on “Network and Internet” to open.
3. Now, Click on Network and sharing center.
4. Under Network and sharing center, double-click on your network.
5. A Network Status dialogue box will pop up. Click on the Properties button.
6. A network properties dialogue box will open. Select “Client for Microsoft Networks,” then click on the Configure button.
7. Now switch to the Advanced tab, then click on the Network Address under Property.
8. By default, the “Not Present” radio button is chosen. Click the radio button related to “Value” and manually enter the new MAC address, then click OK.
9. you’ll then open the prompt (CMD), and there, type “IPCONFIG /ALL” (without quote) and hit Enter. Now check your new MAC address.

Change MAC Address in Linux

Ubuntu supports Network Manager, using which you’ll easily spoof the MAC address with a graphical interface. To vary MAC address in Linux, you would like to follow the below steps:

1. Click the Network icon on the highest right panel of your screen, then click on “Edit Connections.”
2. Now select the network connection you would like to change, then click the Edit button.
3. Next, switch to the Ethernet tab and manually sort a replacement MAC address within the “Cloned MAC address” field. After entering your new MAC address, save your changes.
4. you’ll also change the MAC address within the old traditional way. This involves running a command for changing the MAC address by turning the network interface down, and after the method is complete, again bringing the network interface copy.

The commands are

sudo ifconfig eth0 down
sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
sudo ifconfig eth0 up

5. Once finished, confirm to restart your network interface then you’re done.

Also, if you would like the above MAC address to always become at the boot time, then you’ll get to modify the configuration file under /etc/network/interfaces.d/ or the /etc/network/interfaces. If you don’t modify the files, then your MAC address will be reset once you restart or close up your system.

Change MAC Address in Mac OS X

You can view the MAC address of various network interfaces under System Preferences, but you can’t change the MAC address using System preference, and for that, you’ll be got to use the Terminal.

1. First, you’ve got to seek out your existing MAC address. For this, click on the Apple logo, then select “System Preferences.”
2. Under System Preferences, click on the “Network” option.
3. Now click on the “Advanced” button.
4. Switch to the Hardware tab under the WiFi Properties Advance window.
5. Now, within the hardware tab, you’ll be ready to see the present MAC address of your network connection. You won’t be ready to make changes in most cases, albeit you decide on “Manually” from the Configure drop-down.
6. Now, to vary the MAC address manually, open Terminal by pressing Command + Space, then type “Terminal,” and hit Enter.
7. Type the subsequent command into the Terminal and hit Enter:

ifconfig en0 | grep ether

8. The above command will provide the MAC address for the ‘en0’ interface. From here, you’ll compare the MAC addresses thereupon of your System Preferences.
9. Also, you’ll generate a random MAC address if you would like one. For this, use the subsequent code in Terminal:

openssl rand -hex 6 | sed ‘s/\(..\)/\1:/g; s/.$//’

10. Next, once you’ve got generated the new Mac Address, change your Mac Address by using the below command:

sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Conclusion 

I hope you found this guide useful. If you’ve got any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to use the shape below. 

User Questions:

1. Can you change the MAC address of a device?

The MAC address that’s hard-coded on a network interface controller (NIC) can’t be changed. However, many drivers allow the MAC address to be changed. … the method of masking a MAC address is understood as MAC spoofing.

2. Does a VPN change your MAC address?

VPN service encrypts your connection data; that said, it doesn’t change your MAC address. … VPN service encrypts your connection traffic, making you appear from the various IP address while hiding all of the info traffic from your ISP et al. who might want to access it.

3. Can the MAC address be traced?

There isn’t how to seek out a stolen computer from the MAC address or the identity behind one among these addresses. Similar to IP addresses, MAC addresses are assigned to network devices and are easy to work out with tools like prompt.

4. I can’t change my MAC address

HELP! I can’t change my MAC address from Windows10

5. Here is how to set your various devices to automatically randomize your MAC address when connecting to a WiFi network.

Here is how to set your various devices to automatically randomize your MAC address when connecting to a WiFi network. from privacy