Mac address on your modem??

can you temporarily change your Mac address??? if so, how????

this is for educational purposes

Reply to
Lance
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Part of education is learning how to find the answers yourself, instead of relying on other people to just tell you the answer.

Reply to
Warren

instead

Excuse you, but I think he was just trying to do that. Asking such questions on a news group could be considered a research. A lot of people do that. That's one of the main reason people subscribe to NGs. R. P.

Reply to
R. P.

Asking point-blank for the answer and getting it is the same as looking at the answers in the back of the math book, or transcribing the answers your buddy on the school bus worked to find last night. Simply getting the answer, with no context, is not educational. An educated person isn't one who can spit-back answers someone else gave him, with no understanding of the subject.

And that's all different than someone who has a specific problem that they need to solve, and can't find the answer.

But if you're so sure it will help with his education to just give him the answer, go ahead. MCSE certification has become meaningless because so many "schools" out there had classes that consisted of nothing but test preparation. Thousands of "students" learned to parrot-back answers to questions that were likely to be on the test, and got their MCSE's with no education in computer networking.

If that's your idea of "education", then go ahead. Just tell him the answer. When someone asks him how he knows it's the right answer, he can say that R.P. gave him the answer, and they'll have to ask you if they want to know why it's right. But will you know why it's right, or will you just be relying on an education that consisted of people telling you the answers to the questions?

I stand by my statement that if Lance is really trying to become educated on the subject, then he should find the answer himself, rather than simply ask someone to give him the answer.

Besides, his question wasn't very concise. Is he asking how to change the MAC address of the modem? Does he know if the modem even has a MAC address? Or is he asking how to change the MAC address of the computer connected to the modem ("on the modem")? If we just give him an answer to a question, are we giving him the answer to the right question? How would he know? How would we know?

I actually find his question to be a rather strange one to be asking for educational purposes. I suspect he wants to know the answer to do something that he doesn't want to tell us about, and figures that by saying it's for educational purposes, it makes it more virtuous. And if that's true, then it's even more important that he does his own research. If you're going to break the rules based on half-truths people just tell you, you'll get caught pretty fast. If you don't want to get caught, you do your own research, and don't rely on people who may or may not give you the right answer.

Either way -- educational purposes, or naughty purposes -- his best interest is to go out and research it himself.

Reply to
Warren

Well, if you put it that way, you're right, of course. Perhaps you paid more attention to his "education" reason than I did. I figured that he did not really want to be a great expert on MAC addresses but needed to know it for something bigger where knowing the MAC address was just a side issue, not worth spending too much time with. I've often been involved with such problems where minor peripheral issues kept me bugged down, not leaving enough time to devote to the major problem.

Rudy

looking

because

Reply to
R. P.

Many modems have an HTML setup page that let's you fiddle with settings like the MAC address. Depending on your modem model, you should be able to use your browser to access the setup function. Others have a client utility that you run on your local machine to perform similar functions.

Reply to
Dog Face

No, most modems have a web interface, but I doubt there are many that have much you can modify (eg: MAC address). Mine allows the D/S freq and the auto refresh freq and that's about it.

Reply to
$Bill

Have you tried ?

http://192.168.100.1/

Reply to
$Bill

settings like

Aren't you confusing the modem with the router? The routers have the Web based setup, not the modems. At least that's the case with my Linksys modem/router pair.

Rudy

Reply to
R. P.

Hm, that's news to me. I just wonder why my Linksys modem lacks it.

Rudy

Reply to
R. P.

Dog Face ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) wrote: : Many modems have an HTML setup page that let's you fiddle with settings : like the MAC address. Depending on your modem model, you should be able : to use your browser to access the setup function. Others have a client : utility that you run on your local machine to perform similar functions. :

This site will tell what cable modems have an HTML interface, and what the TCP/IP configuration is to access it:

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NeoTechCC-Built for the Techs, By a Tech!

--Jerry Leslie Note: snipped-for-privacy@jrlvax.houston.rr.com is invalid for email

Reply to
leslie

Well, what da' ya' know?! It sure works though it seems to be all read-only, nothing configurable like in the router's Web page. But still, it's a nice info to have. The reason I did not know about is that I don't belive I got any such documentation with the modem when I bought it. I did though for the router. I wonder if the modem's software is also Linux based as is the router's and weather the modem's firmware is also upgradable. I haven't seen anything on that, either.

Thanks for the info, Rudy

Reply to
R. P.

modem's

The modem's firmware is upgradeable, but not from your side. Firmware upgrades are pushed-out by the provider as needed, just as anything that is configurable is configurable from the provider's side.

Reply to
Warren

Most cable modems use the VxWorks system; while most residential routers that are store bought use embedded Linux.

Reply to
Egress

That's the MAC address of your PC which the router can spoof for you.

Reply to
$Bill

Oh, so that's why it's a good idea to keep the modem powered up all the time, even when the router and PC might be off power. But still I don't get something: if the modem provides the MAC address, what's the point having it also in the router configurable (clonable?)

R. P.

Reply to
R. P.

Firmware

The modem has it's own MAC address. Actually, two or three MAC addresses: One for the RF interface, and one for each interface on the customer side (Ethernet and USB). (Although some only have one MAC address on the customer side, and you can only use USB *or* Ethernet. RCA's have one MAC customer side; Motorolas have two.)

Your computer(s) also have MAC addresses. Your router has a MAC address as well, although you can easily change the MAC address it advertises to the WAN side. This is to make it easy to connect the router to a system that needs to have MAC addresses manually registered by the ISP. (This does not apply to Comcast. You do *not* have to close a computer's MAC address in a router if your provider is Comcast -- or at least you haven't needed to in any Comcast market for the past year and a half.)

Essentially, every device has a MAC address, and (hopefully) a unique MAC address. When you say "my MAC address", usually folks can tell by the context you are using whether you are talking about your computer's MAC address, your router's MAC address, your customer-side MAC address on the modem, or the provider-side MAC address on the modem. (We assume

*you* are a human being, and have no personal MAC address, and you don't literally mean "my" MAC address.)

Your ISP knows the MAC address of your modem, and the MAC address of any device connected to the modem. (Note that a device behind a router is not connected to the modem. The router is.) They know which MAC addresses go on which account, and how many different devices you've ever connected to the modem (assuming they kept records of devices that haven't been connected for a period of time.) They know how many of those MAC addresses are concurrently connected. (If you're paying for only one IP address, you can rotate which single device is connected when, but you can't have more devices connected at the same time than the number of IP addresses you're paying for.)

Essentially, what the provider knows about your equipment is determined by all these different MAC addresses. You don't have just one MAC address.

Reply to
Warren

computer's

Well, since I've had the mistaken notion of only the cable modem having a MAC address, that's what I meant by "my MAC address." How are these MAC addresses transported to Comcast? Im some IP header or in the TCP layer?

Thanks for educating me on this,

R. P.

Reply to
R. P.

Data Link Layer.

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Reply to
Warren

Thanks, Warren. No wonder I did not know about it as I never bothered to pay attention to layers below Transport.

R. P.

Reply to
R. P.

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