Idiot guide to changing MAC ethernet address wanted...
 

Ok, Imagine you are talking to a complete moron who needs to change his ethernet MAC address.

I have OSX.2.8 and have no idea what the "terminal" is, and the only Hex is know is of the evil spell kind.

If anyone has the patience to help me please explain S L O W L Y and step by step what I need to do.

It would be MUCH appreciated :)

First step:
Go and find the sys admin for your machine/network and explain to him/her why you need to change the MAC address.

If this is your own machine and you are the sys admin, you should start by explaining to us why you need to change your MAC address.

Why oh why?
 

It's my own mac. (Though bought second hand).
As you asked, I'll give you an honest explanation of why I want to try changing my Mac address.

I have been unable to access my favorite (and only existing as far as I know) Mac gaming server "Gameranger" for several months now. I just get an "account suspended" message. I've tried everything I could think of to discover why, including dozens of unanswered emails to gameranger. I have no trouble accessing GR from a friends house so I assume it's something to do with my MAC address. I have tried using a different cable modem and ip address to no avail.

It's no big deal, but my friend is going to start charging me soon I'm sure :/

Have you tried removing GR (and all it's tidbits, including ~/Library/Preferences/Game Ranger/) and then reinstalled it? GR support was pretty qucik to respond to me (less then 24 hours).

When you try it at a friend's house, is it on his Mac or did you bring your Mac with you?

Gameranger
 

It was on his computer. When I took mine there and tried to log on I still couldn't.

I've tried trashing all the GR along with all the preferences etc but no luck. The fact that it I cant log in even when using my computer at a friends is what leads me to think it might be MAC address related.

I've read some stuff about how easy it is to change Mac ethernet address in Panther, but I'm using Jaguar. The instructions were also way over my Mac noob head.


Any ideas?

BTW
 

BTW, I sent 12 emails to GR support and many to other addresses I found on their site. None were answered.

:/ So much for support.

Changing your MAC address isn't going to help with your problem.

A MAC address is a local address -- it's never used on the internet at all.

When you send a message to a computer that isn't on your local network, your computer puts it in an ethernet frame and uses the local router's MAC address as the ethernet destination.

After passing through several routers, the packet reaches the final router at the other end. That router uses its own MAC address as the ethernet source address.

The remote server has no way to see your MAC.

Breen

Then what would GR be using to block me joining?

I don't know -- I was only pointing out that it can't be your machine's MAC.

Have you deleted all of your cookies and cache from your browser?

Are you able to sign up for a different account at gameranger?

Forgive me for asking, but how much are you paying for this service?

Breen

Wasn't getting at you Breen. As I said before, I know next to nothing about computers so anything you say is helpful and appreciated.

I tried all of the things you suggest but with no luck.
I have just read a text written by the programmer of a now defunct rival to GR called gameScouter. When talking about security he mentioned the following:

"We had ip/email/mac address based banning,"

Seeing as i've changed the first two, altering my MAC address is the last thing I can think of to try.

The gameranger service is free with an optional payment of 50 dollars for those wanting more options. My mac is too old to play all but a few of the games supported so I haven't yet subscribed.

What breen said was of course true for the packets that get sent as part of normal networking.
But it is possible (and I have also heard of this being done) for an application to use the MAC address as a sort of identifier that it sends to its server (e.g. gameranger) as part of the payload of the packet (using its own proprietary protocol).

In any case, PRØBE, if you are on Jaguar, as far as I recall, there is no way for you to change your MAC address - at least not easily. What might be possible is for someone to write a program that would change the identifying MAC address that is inside the payload of these packets. But that would require that they know the proprietary protocol - and that no encryption was involved.

You could also get another NIC. They should be pretty cheap. Another NIC means another MAC.

Ah. Now that's an interesting point -- and one that I hadn't thought of at all, since I spend most of my life at layer 4 or below. Thanks, hayne. (The fact that I wouldn't install any such ratware on my computer -- didn't MS once start putting the user's MAC into Word documents? -- is beside the point.)

Yellow's point is good as well -- a new NIC will give you a new MAC.

PROBE, you say you've acquired this computer used. Do you know the former owner? Is it possible that your game service is indeed tracking MACs and that while he was using the Mac he managed to get himself suspended, and you're dealing with the consequences?

If so, this becomes a social problem and not a technical one at all. Unfortunately, from your description of 'dozens' of support emails, I also think it's very possible that the administrators have filtered your email address to /dev/null.

Depending on how important this all is to you, tossing that $50 into the collection plate may be a good investment.

man ifconfig

NIC
 

Thanks guys.

Erm...what's a "NIC"?

Network Interface Card. I.e. an ethernet card.

Trevor

Hi guys,
I'm in a similar situation as well where I need to change the MAC address on one of my laptops - I currently have two powerbooks and while I am connected to the internet via the LAN network in my campus the system admin only allows one registered MAC address per user, such that I can connect using only one of my pbook, since the other MAC address isn't recognized by the network.

I just want to know if its possible to connect my other pbook to the network using just one registered MAC address, since it will make things much easier for me and I can let my gf use the other pbook while I can continue
with stuff on my primary machine. I don't think the NIC change will work for me unless its exactly the same (or do they have exactly identical MAC addresses? I really have no clue about that).

thx in advance~!
:)

What about anew user?
 

Have you tried creating a new Account in your computer (System Preferences... > Accounts) and try to see if it works.

Cheers,
Lluis

Umm, it sounds like you just want to swap machines. In that case, just tell your network admin that you have a new machine with a new MAC address (your "primary" machine) and give your gf your other machine and away you go.

hi guys thanks for the swift reply!

lluistar - yes creating a new account on the same machine does allow me to be connected to the internet but that wouldnt solve my problem because the other machine is unable to do software update and secondly, both of us will be doing work at the same time so its kinda tricky that way. I could of course download the separate packages from software update but without a cable to connect both machines that is a real pain. What I hoped to do was to quickly and easily plug into the net with whichever machine that might need it.

hayne - hmm I'm afraid I dont quite understand what you meant...while yes I want to swap machines so to speak to access the net that solution wouldn't allow me to plug in both machines (not simultaneously of course) would it since the network only recognizes one MAC address (and I still have the problem of two machines with different MAC addresses), or am I missing out something here? We do work together often and thats why I'm hoping that I can change the MAC on the other laptop so either one of us can easily connect with either machine - hope that makes it clearer :)

I'm hoping that my gf can just use that spare pbook without being hindranced by the lack of net access to do what she needs - and I dont have to keep updating MAC addresses with the network admin, because it takes forever for them to actually change it and I end up at times with both machines being unable to connect :(

Does that make sense? Sorry if I wasnt clear enough in my initial post, and thanks for the suggestions guys.

cheers

...and just how long do you think it will take the network to notice 2 machines with the same MAC address..??? Red flag to a bull! At my university, this would have you shut out of the network permanently.

A cheap router should allow you to mask it's MAC address and enter that of your "allowed" Mac. Then you can hook up as many machines as you have ports on the router.

You might invest in a cable/DSL router and connect both of the computers through that.
All of them now have the ability to set the MAC address of the internet side to a selected value -- so the router will always appear to the network as your Mac.

[obwarning]
Do check your terms of service before doing this, of course.
[/obwarning]

[idiot]
Duh. Didn't see yellow's post.
[/idiot]

Breen

Hi yellow,

That sounds like a good idea, what would be a good router that is relatively inexpensive for my purposes? Just a number of further questions though:
1) The router would have its own MAC address right and this is the one I have to update with the network admin yeah?
2) Would the router allow me to plug in BOTH machines at the same time? Just wondering but it'd be cool if that's the case.
3) Are there different types of routers with specs I should look out for? I ask because I've never done stuff like this before, and I certainly dont wish to be caught out without any connection at all.

As an aside though, I note a certain reluctance in the thread to tell how to actually change the MAC address - does it make your system unstable or are there other reasons? Sorry if its a dumb question, but honestly I'd rather just change the MAC address if its possible than to spend extra money getting stuff.

Thanks everyone however for chipping in, I'll give it a thought and see if I can get my hands on a cheap router. appreciate it :)

cheers

Rubike, my suggestion was for PRØBE. Of course it would not work in your case. For you any router will do. in case your laptops have wirelesss you can go wireless. An other possibility if both machines are running panther is to connect them using tcp/ip over firewire. connecting machine (one) to the uneversity network and sharing the connection with machine (two) over the firewire, machine (two) uses machine (one) as a bridge. That means that machine (one) should be always up an running when (two) wants to go online, so a router will work much better.

Salut,
Lluis

see http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...31102075234315

oops lluis, sorry about the confusion - its about that time of the day :P
what you suggested though was interesting, even if it requires both machines to be on simultaneously: do you think you could go into a little detail as to exactly where i can do this (here i'm crossing my fingers that no terminal is involved lol) ~ merci!

thanks for the link rg - should have searched more carefully for it, appreciate it :)

are both machines running panther?

hi lluis,

yes both pbooks are running panther 10.3.3 :)

Haven't done it myself... But I guess it should work this way:

The machine connected to the campus will be (one) and the other will be (two).

Machine (one) configuration
- Go to System Preferences > Network (Maybe you want to create a new location for this)
- In Show select Network Port Configurations
- You'll see listed Internal Modem and Build-in Ethernet. Click New... Name it Built-in FireWire (or whatever you like) and in Port select Build-in Firewire ok.
- On top of the window in Show you have listed Built-in FireWire select it.

(Here I'm asuming that you have correctly set up your ethernet to connect to the campus)

- in tcp/ip tab. Configure IpV4 (Manual), Ip Address (172.168.0.1), Subnet Mask (255.255.255.0), leave the rest empty.

- Click Apply Now

Go to System Preferences > Sharing
- Click the Internet Tab
- Select Share your connection from: (Built-in Ethernet)
- Mark To computers using (Built-in Firewire)
- Click Start

Machine (one) is ready. Of course you will have to tweak your firewall.

Machine (two) configuration:
- Go to System Preferences > Network (Maybe you want to create a new location for this)
- In Show select Network Port Configurations
- You'll see listed Internal Modem and Build-in Ethernet. Click New... Name it Built-in FireWire (or whatever you like) and in Port select Build-in Firewire ok.
- On top of the window in Show you have listed Built-in FireWire select it.
- in tcp/ip tab. Configure IpV4 (Manual), Ip Address (172.168.0.2), Subnet Mask (255.255.255.0), Router (172.168.0.1), leave the rest empty.

- Click Apply Now

Now you can use a Firewire cable to connect both computer and (i hope) be able to connect to the internet from both machines at the same time.

As I said before I haven't test this myself, so let me know if it works.

Salut,
Lluis

hi lluis,

thanks for the detailed explanation of the process - i'm afraid i can't try it out at the moment because i need to get my hands on a firewire cable first (doh), which was why i needed to try and change the MAC address first.

cheers

I don't believe that 2 devices can be on the same network, with the same MAC address, at the same time.

Most routers have the ability built-in to masquarade as another MAC address. So, you'd simply plug in the router configure it with your Mac's MAC address. The router will have multiple ports on it and will provide DHCP addresses to anything plugged into it. Basically you will be creating your own mini-LAN behind this router. All network traffic that comes from behind it will appear to be coming from the specified MAC address.

NetGear makes decent routers.
LinkSys makes decent routers.

Hi Yellow,

thanks for the suggestion, will check out those routers and see which alternative is best for me. appreciate everyone's input :)

rubikube:
having 2 machines on the network with the same MAC at the same time would be pointless. just set up internet sharing on one and then you can use both at the same time.

well, it's basically because 90% of the time you want to change your MAC you're trying to do something illegal ;)

++ christoph ++

still no joy...
 

Hi guys,

I tried lluis' suggestion and tried to hook up both laptops using the instructions he gave but the secondary laptop doesnt seem to be connected at all. what is interesting however it gets assigned an ip address but that's about it - i cant use safari nor software update.

Sorry for not replying earlier, had to borrow a firewire cable from a mate to try it out :)

cheers.

edit: i also tried following the link to change the MAC address myself on the secondary machine but that doesnt seem to work as well...for some reason the new MAC address doesnt show up in Network utility.

One thing no one asked... What does it tell you when you try to connect to the GR network ? Also, how (and what game) are you using to connect to GR ?

rubi:

Do both powerbooks have airport cards? if so connect one to the campus LAN (pbook1) and use the Internet Connection Sharing prefpane to set up net access for the other pbook (pbook2). The drawback for this method is that pbook1 ALWAYS needs to be there and on for pbook2 to have a net connection.

The other solution is to buy a router with NAT and DHCP. Plug that into the LAN then plug your computers into the router. the MAC of the router will be the one registered with our school (many even do mac cloning) , and you can connect as many computers behind ythe router as you need.

Maybe it's not just you but part of your ISPs range that's blocked because of someone doing something irregular.

It happened to me to be locked out of a forum because someone kept trolling from the same range as me.