I am currently running Ubuntu 18.04 which originally started as 16.04 and when the system was 16.04 I had configured random MAC address generation on boot via systemd/networkd which worked fine, fast forward a few months where I now have a need to retain a static MAC address, doesn't matter if it's the real MAC or a spoofed MAC and I can manually override the random MAC using ifupdown in /etc/network/interfaces but for the life of me I can not figure out where/why the system is still generating a random MAC address on boot each time. I've gone as far as to completely remove network-manager, disable/remove my /etc/systemd/network configurations, remove ifupdown, manually change the MAC clone setting in the GUI panel via Unity, Ubuntu on Wayland and Mate (all with reliance on NetworkManager seemingly) and even with all of that my system is still generating a random MAC address on boot.
Now, I'm a sys admin with over a decade of experience and am pretty well versed in Linux so I've gone through everything I can think of and even tried installing macchanger (which I've never had a need to use) and tried to use it to set the MAC back to the stock/permanent/real MAC to no avail. Nothing I do and no where I look in the system can I find a way to disable the random MAC configuration and it's driving me mad.
Sure, I can just forcibly override the random MAC using ifupdown configurations but, I'd really like to identify the root cause of the changes and disable/remove it.
Is there anyone in the ether that has seen this or may have some insight that I'm missing? It's got to be something super stupid and simple that I'm overlooking right?
EDIT - Neglected to mention that this is for my wired interface on a laptop, only the wired interface is getting a random MAC address at this point, the wireless interface is not.
Now, I'm a sys admin with over a decade of experience and am pretty well versed in Linux so I've gone through everything I can think of and even tried installing macchanger (which I've never had a need to use) and tried to use it to set the MAC back to the stock/permanent/real MAC to no avail. Nothing I do and no where I look in the system can I find a way to disable the random MAC configuration and it's driving me mad.
Sure, I can just forcibly override the random MAC using ifupdown configurations but, I'd really like to identify the root cause of the changes and disable/remove it.
Is there anyone in the ether that has seen this or may have some insight that I'm missing? It's got to be something super stupid and simple that I'm overlooking right?
EDIT - Neglected to mention that this is for my wired interface on a laptop, only the wired interface is getting a random MAC address at this point, the wireless interface is not.