Change MAC address of LAN card in rc.conf. How?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Rob
> Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 6:01 PM
> To: mgrant at grant.org
> Cc: FreeBSD questions
> Subject: Re: Change MAC address of LAN card in rc.conf. How?
> 
> 
> 
> --- Michael Grant <michael.grant at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Just curious, why would you ever need to change your
> > mac address?
> 
> In my university network, IP numbers must match a
> previously registered MAC address, otherwise the IP
> number is blocked. So our group has a list of IP
> numbers, that each only work with a specific MAC
> address.
> 

Yeah, the network admins do that to prevent people spoofing
IP addresses to try attacking other computers.

Of course, it's stupid since you can spoof the mac and
attack away.

> When shifting around computers and IP addresses, it
> is easier to fake the MAC address to what I need,
> than to start a procedure with the computer center
> to change the MAC address of a certain IP number.
> 

One of these days you need to start spoofing the mac of
the default gateway they are using, and I would suspect
after a few weeks or months of that they will jettison the
whole register MAC address procedure.

Recording the MAC address only has validity when they are
assigning a specific MAC to a specific hardware port on the
switch by using intelligent switches that filter.  But if they
are using dumb hubs then they are just being idiots and
making work for themselves.

> I manage to do this easily on my FreeBSD PCs.
> 
> However, my colleagues are suprised and ask me how
> to do this on their MS-Windows systems.....
> 

It's incredibly easy to do, just go into driver properties
for just about every network driver ever written for Windows.
Of course, this illustrates perfectly the absurdity of
continually trying to make computers easier and easier and
easier to use with a GUI - no matter how much simpler you
make it, the people you are trying to serve will always outrace
you in ignorance.

Ted