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Very unusual request here, I know you aren't normally meant to change your MAC address since it's burned into the interface you are using, but I am networking 2 raspberry Pi zeros together, each with a USB to ethernet attachment where the manufacturer used the EXACT SAME mac address for both modules. So now I need to manually change one.

I've read a lot of instruction saying to do that through /etc/network/interfaces but I've also read that using that file is now totally outdated so there ought to be a more correct way of making this change. Would that be through /etc/dhcpcd.conf - and if so what is the command to be written?

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Reset to default
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based in information found here

sudo tee /etc/systemd/network/00-default.link <<EOF
[Match]
MACAddress=00:00:00:00:00:00

[Link]
MACAddress=00:00:00:00:00:01
EOF

replace 00:00:00:00:00:00 with your USB/Ethernet MAC address and 00:00:00:00:00:01 with whatever you want your MAC to be

As for what to set the address to, something in the "locally administered" ranges are probably the safest, these are

x2-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx
x6-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx
xA-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx
xE-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx

I have tested the above on a Raspberry pi 3, so can not guarantee it will work with a USB ethernet dongle - however, since the article I linked to refers to cute little USB-to-Ethernet adapters for your Raspberry Pi Zeros I'm fairly confident this should work for you

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  • You're the most helpful guy around @Jaromanda x
    – Matt
    Sep 9, 2018 at 23:30
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    Just good timing, @Matt. I was looking at using USB-Ethernet adapters for a couple of my Zero's - your question made me wonder if ALL such adapters had similar issues. So, in a way, your question helped me before I even (possibly) had the same issue (oh, and I see I've answered you before :p )
    – Jaromanda X
    Sep 9, 2018 at 23:41
  • Well it works to change the MAC address if I will know the MAC address. So eth0 is static in my case. But the usb to ethernet module has also eth1 and eth2. I don't know how this could work if I won't find out how eth1 and eth2 changes. In other words: I can not use eth0. And I can only replace (MATCH and LINK) if I will know the original MAC of eth1 or eth2.
    – Micha93
    Jul 5, 2021 at 9:40
  • well, you have two mac addresses on the USB device, right ... pick 1 make it eth1, pick the other make it eth2 - if it's not the order you want, swap ... it's not clear from the answer, but you can create multiple files in that folder ... say 10-eth1.link and 00-eth2.link
    – Jaromanda X
    Jul 5, 2021 at 22:52

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