Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

Spoofing the hardware address (MAC address)

When authentication or filtering is based on the hardware address, we can use hardware address spoofing. The hardware address appears in the ifconfig output as HWaddr 00:1c:bf:87:25:d2.

The hw subcommand of ifconfig will define a devices class and the MAC address:

# ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:1c:bf:87:25:d5 

In the preceding command, 00:1c:bf:87:25:d5 is the new MAC address to be assigned. This is useful when we need to access the Internet through MAC-authenticated service providers that provide access to the Internet for a single machine.

Note: this definition only lasts until a machine restarts.