This issue invloves the current 9.2.1 release of the madwifi-ng drivers, changing the mac address as described at: http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/ChangeMacAddress does not work. The solution is a patch on http://madwifi.org/ticket/323 or directly at http://madwifi.org/attachment/ticket/323/changemac2.diff. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: follow steps as described by http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/ChangeMacAddress Actual Results: the mac address change fails Expected Results: the mac address should change The problem is than ifconfig hw not supporting ARPHRD_IEEE80211 device class. Ultimately the correct fix would be updating ifconfig userspace tools or simply remove line from the driver setting the master device in to ARPHRD_IEEE80211 class. Since, using the master device as ARPHRD_ETHER class device should not have any side effects, it would be ok to patch madwifi to set the device as an ether device instead and save the update to userspace tools.
Not going to apply this - Upstream applied it, but then they backed it out again and said it wasn't a proper solution.