Phenquestions
Media Access Control (MAC) Address
The MAC address, also known as the Media Access Control address, is the unique and separate hardware number of a particular computer, especially in a LAN (Local Area Network) or other network. When connected to the internet as a host or your computer is connected to the Internet, the IP address of your computer is linked to the physical MAC address of the computer on a LAN. A MAC address is similar to an Ethernet address on the Ethernet LAN. In telecommunication protocols, the media access control, which is the sublayer of the data-link layer, uses the MAC address.
Changing the MAC Address with macchanger in Kali Linux
To follow this tutorial to change the MAC address in Kali Linux by using macchanger, the following points are important to consider:
Key Objective
The key objective of this article is to change the real hardware MAC address of the network's card. This article will show you how to change the MAC address with the help of macchanger in Kali Linux.
Main Requirements
The main essential requirement is to have authorized access to a system having Kali Linux.
Level of Difficulty
The difficulty level must be easy.
Protocol
# (needs to execute given Linux commands with authorized roots, instead of using the sudo command, or needs to be done directly by the root user)
$ (involves the execution of given Linux commands as the non-authorized user)
Key Instructions
The following key instructions will be included in this tutorial:
- Changing the MAC address to a random MAC address
- Checking the new MAC address
- Changing the MAC address to a specific MAC address
Change the MAC Address to a Random MAC address
In the first step, we will use macchanger to change the hardware MAC address of the network card to a random address. We will investigate the current MAC address by taking the eth0 network interface. By doing so, we will able to execute the macchanger with the argument eth0 and the option -s.
$ sudo macchanger -s eth0The network interface must be turned off before changing the MAC address. The command ifconfig is used to turn off the interface of the network. This command is shown below:
$ sudo ifconfig eth0 down
If you have failed to turn off the network interface, then the following error message will be displayed:
ERROR: Can't change MAC: interface up or not permission: Cannot assign requested address
Now, we will change the hardware MAC address of the network card to different hexadecimal numbers. You can do so by entering the following command:
$ sudo macchanger -r eth0
Finally, bring up the network interface and show your new MAC address by entering the following commands:
$ sudo ifconfig eth0 down
Check the New MAC Address
After listing the network interface with the help of the ifconfig command, the new MAC address will be shown.
$ sudo ifconfig
Change the MAC Address to a Specific MAC Address
To change the MAC address to a specific string in Kali Linux, use the following method. This can be done with the help of macchanger's -m option. The commands for changing the MAC address to a specific address are given below:
$ sudo ifconfig eth0 down
Now, use the -1 option to determine the MAC address prefix for the particular hardware vendor. The command will be written as follows:
$ sudo macchanger -l
Conclusion
This tutorial explained what a MAC address is and how one can spoof it using the macchanger and ifconfig commands.
