Resetting Your MAC Address on macOS and Linux

Traveling a lot and need to reset your MAC address? Here’s how to do it on both macOS and Linux.

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🍏 macOS: Resetting MAC Address

On macOS, you’ll be using the airport and ifconfig utilities. Here’s a one-liner you can run in your Terminal (note: replace en0 with your actual wireless interface):

sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport en0 -z && \
sudo ifconfig en0 ether $(openssl rand -hex 6 | sed 's/../&:/g; s/:$//')

What It Does:

• airport -z: Disassociates from any wireless network.
• openssl rand -hex 6: Generates 6 bytes (12 hex characters) of random data.
• sed: Formats the output to match MAC address style (e.g., 02:1A:3F:BB:4D:99).
• ifconfig en0 ether ...: Sets the new MAC address.

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🐧 Debian/Ubuntu Linux: Resetting MAC Address

On Debian-based systems, use the ip command. The following script generates a valid random MAC address (starting with 02: to indicate it’s locally administered).

#!/bin/bash

NEW_MAC=$(printf '02:%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x:%02x\n' \
  $((RANDOM%256)) $((RANDOM%256)) $((RANDOM%256)) \
  $((RANDOM%256)) $((RANDOM%256)))

IFACE="wlan0"  # Replace with your actual interface (use `ip link show`)

sudo ip link set "$IFACE" down
sudo ip link set "$IFACE" address "$NEW_MAC"
sudo ip link set "$IFACE" up

echo "MAC address for $IFACE changed to $NEW_MAC"

⚠️ Be sure to replace wlan0 with your actual wireless interface name. Run ip link show to find it — often it’s something like wlp0s20f3.

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🧠 Final Notes

• These changes are temporary and will reset after a reboot or network reconnect.
• For permanent spoofing, consider using NetworkManager profiles or macchanger.
• Not all Wi-Fi adapters support MAC address spoofing — test and confirm!