I just installed Ubuntu 16.04 on a separate HDD, and I noticed two oddities:
-
Whereas on 14.04 (on my main HDD) my USB Wi-Fi dongle shows up as
wlan0
, on 16.04 it shows up aswlx112233445566
. (Real MAC redacted) -
Also, using the
hw ether
parameter to change the MAC address doesn't work on 16.04.
Here's the relevant output from lsusb
:
Bus 008 Device 002: ID 148f:5370 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT5370 Wireless Adapter
Can anyone shed some light on what's going on here?
Best Answer
As of recently, Ubuntu (well,
systemd
) now uses something called Predictable Network Interface Names. Essentially, this means that non-permanent network interfaces (ie, USB interfaces) now have a name in the form ofenx<MAC_ADDR>
orwlx<MAC_ACCR>
(or similar), so that any scripts and systems depending on that specific device will have 100% confidence that it's targeting the right device.Other naming conventions will allow for the device to be referred to by physical location or any other form of permanently identifying value. Specifically, any of these values can be used to generate an interface name (with the best being chosen):
In the past, interface names weren't assigned in a "sane" fashion -- some systems used pseudo-permanent names (
wlan1
for a device with this MAC), others assigned them on a first-come first-serve basis. If you still prefer this scheme of doing things (or just hate persistent names becausesystemd
is doing it), it's possible to reverse it by addingnet.ifnames=0
to your boot arguments.You should still be able to fake the MAC address of the device by using the Connection Editor, but
hw ether
will no longer work as the MAC address is a piece of the device's identifier/name.