I am using open Suse 10.3 (64 bit) linux. I am trying to install some programs which need the mac number of the machine to run. But mac number of my machine in Suse linux changes with every boot up. And it links to different ethernet device (like eth1 later eth2 later eth3) with every boot up. How can I fix the mac number (i.e. Hwadress given by ifconfig command) of my machine in Suse linux. Bora

You cannot "fix the MAC address". The MAC should be unique to the network chipset on the motherboard or on a NIC. To get it, run ifconfig. [quote] eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:6B:00:20:99 inet addr:192.168.249.152 Bcast:192.168.249.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::202:6bff:fe00:2099/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:27992754 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:4754478 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:4070110421 (3.7 GiB) TX bytes:1481125325 (1.3 GiB) lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:198981 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:198981 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:53518795 (51.0 MiB) TX bytes:53518795 (51.0 MiB) [/quote]Notice the "HWaddr" on the first line of eth0? Regards, Cecil

That is the problem. eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:6B:00:20:99 (from ifconfg) LINE is changing everytime I reboot the machine?

boray, don't double or cross-post on the forums. I've deleted the other two threads so that all discussions remain in one place in this thread. You should post your question once in the forum you think will give your question the exposure it deserves and then wait for others to reply.

Your problem certainly is strange, the mac address is unique and it is not possible to change it. Perhaps a driver issue is causing this problem, which driver are you using and what kind of ethernet card do you have? Also, do you have just one ethernet card or multiple?

It sounds to me like you have more than one network interface card (nic). Each time you boot, a different card is associated with a different interface name. If this is the case, try and use a program called ifrename to fix a specific nic to a specific interface name. tophandcwby

I have found the problem of changing mac adress after each boot up. Forcedeth driver in linux can not see the correct mac number and gives an eror then it assigns a random mac number. I have found out that this adress is given in reverse order in nvidia cards and because of this reason driver wont see it correctly. There are some fixes to the driver forcedeth but I could not apply these fixes. Can some body please tell me How can I make the driver read mac adress in the reverse order? Can I find the already fixed driver somwhere on the net?

Since the forcedeth driver is maintained by the Linux kernel developers, maybe you should do a search on their mailing list and see if this problem is addressed. If not, maybe you should contact them regarding this issue.