> Mark White wrote
> > Can somebody enlighten me: is it possible to change the
> > ethernet [MAC, ie xx.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx] address of a network
> > interface?
> > 
> > syntax.  [On linux boxen, I've previously done this with the
> > "hw" option to ifconfig]
> 
> AFAIK, you can't... MAC addresses are uniques numbers assigned to NICs at
> time of production by the manufacturer. 

As I recall, back in the earlier days of netbsd you could change
the mac address on the hp300 port, but at some point this went away.
(my memory may be faulty, as it has been available in linux for
as long as I can remember, and was the reason I used linux vice
netbsd on my cable modem gateway a few years ago)

> 
> I can't see the point of wanting to change this, but you must have
> your reasons... perhaps you can enlighten me on this one...

I don't know how they do things right now, but two years ago, cable
modems for highway1->mediaone->att-broadband used the mac address
to determine who you were in their dhcp lookup/configuration, and
if you wanted to use a different computer than the one that was
initially configured, you needed to call them to reconfigure your
dhcp so that you could connect to the network. Nothing like dynamic
ip addresses, eh?

Anyways, I initially set up with a windows machine, as that was what
their installation people knew/needed to get you running. You end up
with one golden network interface card that you can use in any computer
by moving it. I then used a dec multia running linux as the masquerading
router, and had to configure the network card mac address prior to
the network configuration via dhcp where the  ip address etc. was
setup.

I'm sure there are many less desireable hacking reasons to change
your mac address. Two ethernet cards with the SAME mac address 
will totally hose the ethernet, throwing both systems off of the
network, if memory serves me correctly on what happened when I
tried that out. 

> 
> cheerio Berndt
> -- 
> Name    : Berndt Josef Wulf            | +++ With BSD on Packet Radio +++
> E-Mail  : wulf@ping.net.au             |    tfkiss, tnt, dpbox, wampes
> ICQ     : 18196098                     |  VK5ABN, Nairne, South Australia 
> URL     : http://www.ping.net.au/~wulf | MBOX : vk5abn@vk5abn.#lmr.#sa.au.oc
> Sysinfo : DEC AXPpci33+, NetBSD-1.5    | BBS  : vk5abn.#lmr.#sa.aus.oc 
> 
> 


-- 
Joseph Sarkes		jsarkes@tiac.net