wifi mac address changes on reboot

[manish_285]

hey my phone runs on android 4.2.2,(bsnl penta ps 501) and my problem is the wi-fi mac address. the wi-fi mac address keeps on changing by itself on every reboot/or switching on/off the wifi. do you have any solution?

 

[Rukbat]

MAC address or IP address? Every internet device in the world has a single unique MAC address, that never changes. The IP address can change every time you connect - that's normal. There's no "solution" because there's no problem - unless you need a static IP address for some reason (maybe less than 0.01% of the cellphones in the entire world do), in which case these instructions are pretty typical.

(If you don't absolutely KNOW that you need a static IP address, and what address you should use, DON'T set one up. If you set it up wrong, that internet connection won't work.)

If your MAC address changes on every reboot or on/off switch, take the phone back. It's illegal and it's going to cause problems with internet-connected devices all over the world.

 

[bugmenot2k15]

Rukbat doesn't know what he's talking about.

MAC address on *nixes are set by software, on linux there is a long known bug where the MAC address is incorrectly detected at boot and replaced by a random one, see this ubuntu bug report for details: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ source/udev/ bug/153727

If you're not afraid of putting your hands in the engine, look at this thread for a possible solution: http://talk.radxa.com/topic/47/new-mac-address-at-every-reboot/24

Not sure if this works on android but under gnu/linux one can edit /etc/network/interfaces to set the MAC such as in the following example for eth0:

iface eth0 inet dhcp
hwaddress ether 00:a0:cc:d1:f0:&e
auto eth0

-edit-
it seems to be a long known issue with android too, see http://forums.androidcentral.com/ve...57-wifi-mac-address-changes-every-reboot.html and https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23330

 

[Crashdamage]

MAC addresses are a kinda complicated thing. For anyone wanting to get a better understanding of them and why they usually do not change - but sometimes do - as usual, this is a pretty good resource:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

To the OP: Is the MAC address changing causing a problem or just a matter of curiosity?