Wi-Fi Interface MAC address is changing every time

Product support
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1

I use the command

nmcli -p -f general.hwaddr device show wlan0

To get the WiFi MAC address, and we use a Wi-Fi dongle as well and use

nmcli -p -f general.hwaddr device show wlan1

To get its MAC address. But on some devices, we notice that this command returns a different MAC address everytime.

I understand that there is a randomization happening during Wi-Fi scan, but our goal is to whitelist this Wi-Fi interface to our network so it can connect, but this command however displays a different value periodically. Any advice?

2

Hello @lge , you can disable MAC address randomization with this balenaOS config.json change:

Let us know if you are still having issues after applying that setting!

3

Applying this didn’t fix it. The output mac address of this command still changes every time.

4

Is it only the dongle interface that changes addresses? It could be related to the kernel driver or the udev rules around removable interfaces like that.