0004424: MAC address of wireless network interface always changing

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0004424	Kali Linux	General Bug	public	2017-12-14 17:08	2017-12-15 08:20

Reporter	samiux	Assigned To	rhertzog
Priority	normal	Severity	minor	Reproducibility	always
Status	closed	Resolution	won't fix
Product Version	2017.3

Summary	0004424: MAC address of wireless network interface always changing
Description	Wireless network interface will be changed on every plug in or reboot. It affects all on board and USB wireless network interfaces.
Steps To Reproduce	On board wireless network interface - reboot then ifconfig USB wireless network interface - plug in and/or re-plugin then ifconfig

rhertzog 2017-12-15 08:05 administrator ~0007698	How is that a problem? Are you using network-manager? You can configure the way the MAC address is handled in network-manager. If you want a fixed MAC, you can set it there. I don't think that there's anything to fix here.

samiux 2017-12-15 08:14 reporter ~0007699	In my opinion, ifconfig should report the hardware MAC address correctly instead of random one. Meanwhile, Network Manager reports the correct MAC address but ifconfig does not. In addition, I tested the same hardware in Ubuntu Gnome 16.04.3 HWE with no such problem. I think that it is a bug in ifconfig or somewhere.

rhertzog 2017-12-15 08:20 administrator ~0007700	That old ubuntu version had no MAC randomization, it's a new privacy feature of network-manager. Hence not a bug. Closing the ticket. If you want to find out the underlying MAC address, I'm sure that you can find a better suited tool than ifconfig (macchanger is able to do it for example).

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2017-12-14 17:08	samiux	New Issue
2017-12-15 08:05	rhertzog	Assigned To	=> rhertzog
2017-12-15 08:05	rhertzog	Status	new => feedback
2017-12-15 08:05	rhertzog	Note Added: 0007698
2017-12-15 08:14	samiux	Note Added: 0007699
2017-12-15 08:14	samiux	Status	feedback => assigned
2017-12-15 08:20	rhertzog	Status	assigned => closed
2017-12-15 08:20	rhertzog	Resolution	open => won't fix
2017-12-15 08:20	rhertzog	Note Added: 0007700