How to change MAC address using macchanger on Kali Linux

Change to a Random MAC address

First, let's see how we can use macchanger to change network card's hardware MAC address to a random address. We can start by investigating our current MAC address of eg eth0 network interface. To do this we execute macchanger with an option -s and an argument eth0.

# macchanger -s eth0

The network interface you are about to change a MAC address on must be turned off prior your MAC address change attempt. Use ifconfig command to turn off your network interface:

# ifconfig eth0 down

If the following error message appears you have most likely failed to turn off your network interface:

ERROR: Can't change MAC: interface up or not permission:
Cannot assign requested address

Now, its time to change network card's hardware MAC address to some random hexadecimal numbers:

# macchanger -r eth0

Bring your network interface up and display your new MAC addres:

# ifconfig eth0 down
# macchanger -s eth0

Check new MAC address

Your new MAC address will now show while listing network interface using ifconfig command:

Change to a Specific MAC address

The following procedure on Kali Linux can be used to spoof MAC address to a specific string. This can be achieved by use maccachnager's -m option: # ifconfig eth0 down # macchanger -m 00:d0:70:00:20:69 eth0 # ifconfig eth0 up # macchanger -s eth0

Use -l option to find a MAC address prefix of a specific hardware vendor: # macchanger -l

Note:

• # - requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
• $ - requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user