How to change your ip address

Chris W · 21-10-2006, 14:23

Why Change IP address?

Contrary to popular belief, your ip address is not normally the cause of slow browsing, receiving lots of spam, or many other connectivity problems. Reasons for changing an ip address include: being banned from a forum/ irc channel etc, or someone attacking an individual address (usually after peeing off a script kiddy in IRC).

How to Change the address

The ip address assigned to your PC is linked to the mac address of the device that is connected. A USB connection will always have a mac address one digit higher than the mac address of the cable modem, whereas an ethernet connection uses a NIC which has it's own mac address. An ip addreess can be forced to change by changing the mac address of a device in one of the following ways:

switch from usb to ethernet or vice versa
change network cards
change the mac address of the NIC

Changing a NIC's mac address

Windows
Go into device manager and then the properties of the network card. In the "advanced" section there is an option to change the network address/ physical address/ mac address. Check the current mac address using ipconfig /all from a command prompt and then increase the mac address by one digit. Reboot everything and you should have a new ip.

Apple Mac
NB- this procedure will only work on a mac with terminal- ie os 10.1 or higher

Open a terminal window and type:

sudo ifconfig en0 ether 00:00:00:00:00:00

where en0 is the interface you are using, and the zeros are the mac address that you want to use.

Linux
When logged in as root type:

/etc/init.d/networking stop
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:00
/etc/init.d/networking start

Notes

Leaving the connection off for a period of time does not guarantee the same ip address, because even if the lease has expired, if the ip address has not been assigned to someone else you will get the same ip back again. Also reinstalling the ntl software will not give a different ip unless you use a different device to connect.

Originally written by Chris W

eth01 · 25-07-2007, 17:42

An easier way of your changing your IP is todo the following;

For Windows Users Only!

1. Connect directly to your cable modem, DO NOT connect through a router, etc.

2. Load Command Prompt (Start, Run, Type 'cmd' and press Enter/OK). Black window appears.

3. Enter 'ipconfig /release'.

4. Disconnect the power supply from your cable modem, for 1 minute. (Whilst your cable modem is effectively powerless, enter 'ipconfig /renew' in the Command Prompt window, WAIT! DO NOT press Enter/OK)

5. Connect the power supply back into your cable modem, and then press Enter/OK on the above command (which was 'ipconfig /renew'), continuously repeat the same command using the UP button on your keypad (saves you manually typing it in).

6. It should hopefully provide you with a new IP. This has always worked for me.

The reason you enter 'ipconfig /renew' at step 4 is so that you don't waste time at step 5 -- If you waste time, there's every possibility that it won't work.

Hope that helps!

chocoholics · 16-12-2007, 21:37

A couple additional comments:

1] If you ARE using a router, you can change your ip address by going into your router's control panel, changing your mac address (keep things simple by increasing the last number by 1), and then disconnecting/reconnecting.

2] Or for those who need to do this often, simplify the whole process by using a software to change your ip address like iprivacytools.

Hope that helps!