MAC address on the Onion is WRONG!

Michal Prokes

@Rick-Gibson Hi Rick, I had the same issue today when Omega2 arrived. MAC address on the labels was not correct.

Gabriel Ongpauco

It looks like the factory may have misprinted your MAC labels. We've noted this and we'll follow up with them when we get the chance.

In the meantime, if necessary you can adjust the Omega's AP to match the address on the sticker via the command line in our guide here.

*Please note that these changes will be reset when upgrading firmware.

Gabe

Larry Pinney

@Rick-Gibson

The solution is to change the MAC in the "factory" partition.

Make a copy of the partition described here :
https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/generic.backup

Edit the MAC ... Maybe use http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Ghex

Build firmware with the "factory" partition set writable.
Edit the Device Tree Source file
Remove ' read-only; ' from the partition define

Then install your edited "factory" partition.

This should be covered under warranty ....

Chuck Malloch

Gabe - the MAC labels are correct (or at least within your assigned MAC address space) while the MAC on my device

root@Omega-A551:~# ifconfig
apcli0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 42:A3:6B:00:A5:51  
          inet addr:172.16.70.16  Bcast:172.16.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::40a3:6bff:fe00:a551/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2068814 errors:0 dropped:2 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:238544 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:232288865 (221.5 MiB)  TX bytes:21739943 (20.7 MiB)

br-wlan   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C0:A5:53  
          inet addr:192.168.3.1  Bcast:192.168.3.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec0:a553/64 Scope:Link
          inet6 addr: fd1d:48c4:7633::1/60 Scope:Global
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:10985 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:904544 (883.3 KiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C0:A5:53  
          inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec0:a553/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:59463 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:19784524 (18.8 MiB)
          Interrupt:5 

eth0.1    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C0:A5:53  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2903 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:208772 (203.8 KiB)

eth0.2    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C0:A5:53  
          inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec0:a553/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:56534 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:19332621 (18.4 MiB)

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:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:129209 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:129209 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
          RX bytes:8418410 (8.0 MiB)  TX bytes:8418410 (8.0 MiB)

ra0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C0:A5:51  
          inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec0:a551/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:6

only for the apcli0 interface is quite wrong, being outside said MAC address space.

I'm not planning to figure out how to set up a tool chain and everything to rebuild the firmware.
Is there another solution? Will waiting for a firmware upgrade? Or will even that help?

Shashi Alabur

I have an Omega2 with a wrong MAC label too !!

The sticker says 40 A3 6B C0 E5 3B
But, my router shows 42 A3 6B 00 E5 3B .....

Chris Stratton

The MAC address is different, not "wrong".

Essentially all MT7688 setups generate the client-interface MAC from the AP interface MAC (what is stored in flash and typically printed on the unit) via an algorithm than involves setting the locally adminstered bit 0x02:00:00:00:00:00 and then changing a few other bits in a predictable way.

JC LAWSON

I got the same issue with my Onion Omega2,.

The Omega2+ I received at the same time was fine. The mistake was 42:A3:6B in the product instead of 40:A3:6B on the label. Now I cannot find any manufacturer registered with IEEE for these codes.

It means MAC cannot be relied upon as a UID (as it should) and it might cause some compliance issues.

Also, please be aware that the MAC label will quickly fade due to product heat.

JC LAWSON

@Rick-Gibson Are you certain a WiFi device would have multiple addresses?!? My understanding of IEEE802 is the MAC address would be UNIQUE to the PHY (hardware at the lowest physical level, WiFi xceiver in this case). IP and multiple interfaces are handle at higher levels.

JC LAWSON

@Gabriel-Ongpauco said in MAC address on the Onion is WRONG!:

It looks like the factory may have misprinted your MAC labels. We've noted this and we'll follow up with them when we get the chance.

In the meantime, if necessary you can adjust the Omega's AP to match the address on the sticker via the command line in our guide here.

*Please note that these changes will be reset when upgrading firmware.

Gabe

Is the mistake on the label or in the product?
It looks like the label 40 would be intended and the product 42 would be wrong.

My worry is I cannot find any manufacturer registered with either 40:A3:6B or 42:A3:6B. To be safe, the hardware manufacturer of the Onion omega should be registered with IEEE and manage configuration so we can rely on one MAC address unique to each device.

Also, you mention we can adjust AP but I cannot see how this would change MAC!?! You might notice that the manufacturer code (where the mistake is) should be common to all Onion devices and that it is not included in SSID you can adjust (regardless of your MAC you cannot change).

Chris Stratton

@JC-LAWSON said in MAC address on the Onion is WRONG!:

It looks like the label 40 would be intended and the product 42 would be wrong.

Both are intended, neither is "wrong".

As already explained back in February a few posts up this page, the address with the "2" in the most significant octet has the locally administered bit set, so you won't find that in OUI tables since it is in a reserved range. This address is derived from the other address by a set of rules than include setting this bit. After all the chip has two interfaces, you wouldn't want them to both have the same address.

If you don't like the derived address, grab the raw one instead or change the startup scripts to alter which interface gets which address.

Do remember that MAC addresses are easily spoofed.