macwunder Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Posted this in the Leopard section by mistake... Not sure if the fact that I'm running Lion makes any difference, though. Here's a strange one! For me anyway... I had a Dell Optiplex GX620, I turned into a hackintosh. The NIC never showed anything for the ethernet hardware address than 00-00-00-00-00-00, so I had to run an AppleScript every boot to set it to the MAC of the built-in NIC (simple one that ran a simple ifconfig command). The MAC never showed in the Network Utility or Preferences, though, but ifconfig and my router saw it. Well, I built a new machine - Gigabyte H61M-DS2 (v1.2), 3.2 GHz i5 quad core, GeForce 8400GS video... OS X Lion installed to user profile 'install', then I used migration assistant to move my user profile to the new machine. Things have been going great, and I love the faster machine. BUT... There is always one of those... I loaded Linux on to the old Dell, and things on the network went flaky. The Dell was getting the same IP as my new Hackintosh via DHCP. That's strange! What I find out is, my new Hackintosh has the MAC address of the Dell's NIC, even though I trashed the AppleScript that used to set the MAC on startup. I can't find where this new machine is getting that MAC address from. What's even more strange?? I boot the machine from a live cd of CentOS 5, and it still has the MAC address of the Dell machine. What the heck?? Anyone point me in a productive direction? I'm pulling what hair I have left out. Many thanks! Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eep357 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 try doing a full reset on your router Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macwunder Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 try doing a full reset on your router What is this going to do? The router isn't setting the hardware address. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eep357 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 It will set the DNS host name such as what you see in terminal and ifconfig, and carry that over even when you do a clean install with different username etc. Also some internet providers such as Comcast, who's modems and/or routers will store the mac address of the first device ever connected to them and always expect to see that device on the network be it a computer or a router. They are damn near impossible to get cleared out, especially if your impatient, in which case the only way to maintain a stable internet connection is to spoof the mac address of the previously connected device, in some cases this can happen automatically depending on your setup. Time Capsule or AE has a set option that will do this with one click but they don't call it mac address cloning, getting mac address of old router, from connected modem, and spoofing it. I would also flush the dns cache in OSX as well. You've done this with 2 different machines using at least 3 different OS's with only 1 common denominator being the network they are connecting to. Previously you forced a mac address that was picked up by your router and ifconfig only, but not seen in system profiler. The short answer is, you already tried everything you could think of inside OSX and were out of ideas and so came here to ask for any advice. So you can try something different that may or may not work but is relatively low risk if it doesn't help, or just keep doing what you had been doing that didn't work. That being said, it may not help at all, and I could be way off in my attempt to diag a problem with a computer I've never seen, based on one paragraph written about it, but I didn't just pull random thoughts out my ass either. Without access to all the logs and terminal, that's the best I can do. Best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macwunder Posted September 2, 2012 Author Share Posted September 2, 2012 Okay. I think you misunderstand what my problem is. My problem is the mac address being reported by the system for my built in NIC. Internet connectivity is fine and stable (unless I turn on there Dell machine, and then, well we have an IP conflict). This happens when I boot the machine, on network or not. So, true, you haven't access to logs, etc. Pray give me a suggestion as to what log to take a look at for a clue? That way we both can stay very far away from your ass. Is there possibly a plist file somewhere in Lion that will spoof the hardware address that may have been set by running that login script that first time I signed in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 Would it be too much to ask if you could try to be nice to the only person who's trying to help you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eep357 Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/Networkinterfaces.plist You can try manually changing it to a different one here if needed, or delete entire plist and let osx build new one. To edit mac address will need xcode or another dedicated plist editor, everything else in that plist can be edited using text editor. It can't be edited in it's current location, would need to copy it to desktop first. Also good time to verify your ethernet is listed as en0 and if not make changes to that as needed. Then follow steps here #63 I do understand your problem, machine only needs to connect to router 1 time for it to apply settings and spoofing is what makes internet working and stable. I can't think of any other explanation of how booting from a Linux live CD would still manage to change the mac to that of another machine who's only ever shared common device is the home network. While doing the above plist edits may fix it, and even give the same trickle down effect to subsequent installations, a plist on a hard drive of computer A which is shut down and sitting in a laptop bag or something is not going to directly effect the settings on Computer B running linux live CD without a 3rd factor to bridge that gap, or possibly quantum mechanics at work allowing file to exist in 2 places at once at the same time. Quantum.plist maybe .If you disable the lan and wifi in bios, then boot using linux live CD is it the same result still?(there shouldn't be a MAC address at all when hardware disabled), or unplug router and modem for 30 seconds while booting live CD and see if any change that way. Also do you have copy of script you were using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macwunder Posted September 2, 2012 Author Share Posted September 2, 2012 Thanks for tha. I will look at the values in that plist when I get back into town. I previously renamed that file and rebooted, letting the file be recreated with no change in symptoms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eep357 Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 no problem, gotta delete all the connections from system prefs too or it will just recreate it's self with the same settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macwunder Posted October 6, 2012 Author Share Posted October 6, 2012 Just a follow up... Thanks to everyone that offered help. On my previous machine (running Snow Leopard), I was running an AppleScript on boot to set the MAC address because it would reset to 00:00:00:00:00:00 every time I restarted. When I migrated my user to the new machine, the script ran one time when I restarted. Since this machine is running Lion, it appears that this setting gets written to a persistent setting - very different behavior from Snow Leopard! So my resolution was to run the AppleScript one more time with a different MAC address to avoid the conflict... Just wish I had made a note of what the actual MAC address should have been. Luckily I had a record of an old HP MAC that I know has been recycled. Also do you have copy of script you were using? The script I use is described here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/275174-applescript-to-set-your-mac-address-on-startup/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macwunder Posted November 28, 2012 Author Share Posted November 28, 2012 One more update... Just upgraded my hard disk. Used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the partition, installed the boot loader with ######, shut down and swapped the disks. When I rebooted, the computer now has the MAC address for the Gigabyte motherboard I have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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