Is there a way to reassign ethernet address?

kwondokwondo
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Is it possible to fool the hardware's ethernet address on a iMac? I did a Carbon Copy Clone of old iMac (the rev B purple) to a new 15" iMac LCD. The problem is that I have a software that I license annually and that software uses the ethernet address to identify the owner (licensee) and since my current license is for the old iMac the software doesn't work.



Any suggestion is greatly appreciated.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    With panther, you can ask for a DHCP Lease renewal. If you don't have that, which I assume you don't, you can use a program called coktail, which can be found at www.versiontracker.com. In I think the networks tab you can chose DHCP Lease renewal also.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    jeremiah richjeremiah rich Posts: 853member
    Wait. Do you mean the ethernet address or the mac address? (The number that is uniquely assigned to each ethernet card. The same one Microsoft uses to "lock" XP to a certain machine...)
  • Reply 3 of 12
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    he's talking about the MAC address.



    i found this on a forum.



    don't take this to heart though, i've never tested it, so it might totally hose your machine. also make sure to write down your old MAC address, just to be safe.



    Quote:

    For anyone who has not noticed it ... you are now able to change the system's Ethernet card MAC adress without any third party software. Just do a:



    % sudo ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff



    where en0 is the network interface (numbered from en0, en1, en2 ...) and aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff is the desired MAC address in hex notation.



    oh hell, i'm a retard and i'm going to try it. hope for the best!



    ok, anyone know of a command in OSX that works like ipconfig /all on a PC?
  • Reply 4 of 12
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    wow tell if this works!





    oh the uses and terrible hours of ban time from GR...f*** evill
  • Reply 5 of 12
    kwondokwondo Posts: 217member
    Jeremiah Rich and alcimedes are correct in my inquiry. I'm talking about the possibility of re-addressing the "unique" Mac address that the ethernet card has.

    ...So, is there a way to reassign a new Mac address?



    Thanks for your replies
  • Reply 6 of 12
    jeremiah richjeremiah rich Posts: 853member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    wow tell if this works!





    oh the uses and terrible hours of ban time from GR...f*** evill



    Looks like it didn't! Unless I am mistaken as of right now that post is almost 6 hours old!
  • Reply 7 of 12
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    Quote:

    ok, anyone know of a command in OSX that works like ipconfig /all on a PC?



    Mac OS X also has an ipconfig command line tool, but it doesn't seem to have a man page and the help is useless.



    Code:


    [stoopowerbook:~] stoo% ipconfig --help

    usage: ipconfig <command> <args>

    where <command> is one of waitall, getifaddr, ifcount, getoption, getpacket, set



  • Reply 8 of 12
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    The equivalent (actually I think the source of) the ipconfig tool on Windows is ifconfig. There are a few differences, but for basic troubleshooting they are equivalent.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    actually, i'm sure it does work, but i want to make sure i change the MAC address on the right device.



    i've got an airport card, modem, ehternet card and in theory the IP over firewire, which might assign a MAC address.



    so before i change anything, i need to find out which device is which. (en0, en1, en2 etc)



    an ipconfig /all on a PC lists the device number, as well as the MAC and IP addresses. i need something that will tell me what those are.



    but i asked around, and you can change your unique MAC address.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    You should be able to (relatively easily) figure out what is what in network utility under the info tab
  • Reply 11 of 12
    kwondokwondo Posts: 217member
    Thank you all for keeping the post up at top...but, is there a way to reassign and how do I go about it?



    Thanks
  • Reply 12 of 12
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    alchimedes already gave the answer:



    Code:


    sudo ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff







    Usually en0 is built-in Ethernet and en1 is AirPort.



    BTW, an Ethernet address and a MAC (short for media access control) address are the same thing.
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