Skip to main content

Unbinding MAC Addresses on Fedora

Fedora 12/13/14: These instructions are written for Fedora 12 and 13 but should apply to earlier Fedora releases. Fedora 15 utilizes a new persistent naming scheme, and interfaces may be named differently than in previous releases.

By default, Fedora binds ethernet interfaces (such as eth0) to a MAC address (specific network interface card/NIC). This is useful, because if a NIC is added, it will be assigned a new ethernet interface (instead of bumping the existing eth0 to eth1). However, this causes problems when you use a removable disk drive and move it from one computer to another.

To unbind the interace from the MAC address:

  1. Start the system-config-network tool (on the menus under System>Administration>Network).

Network Mac 1

  1. Double-click on the eth0 device.

Network Mac 2

  1. Select the Hardware tab and uncheck the box labeled Bind to MAC address, then click Ok.

Network Mac 3

  1. Select File>Save.
  2. Delete the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net-rules by entering this command as root:
rm /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
  1. Reboot your system.