Tutorial MACycle - The Improved MAC Changer for HomePass!

[dragonblood9999]

how long does it take to get a streetpass?
i have done everything i need to do(setting up the attwifi AP) and after 3 hours i still have not recevied a streetpass

 

[loco365]

I looked into it, and found that no matter what (whether the Internet is found or not), it looks like this:

Try unchecking the second option. See what that does. I don't have it checked myself and I don't have any problems.

how long does it take to get a streetpass?
i have done everything i need to do(setting up the attwifi AP) and after 3 hours i still have not recevied a streetpass

Make sure you're sharing an internet connection with the hostednetwork from your main internet connection.

 

[pBullet]

I'm at a loss then. I turned off the shared connection option then put it back on and it started working again, so it's just MACycler that is doing something odd when recreating the connection and not preserving the options previously. I guess?

 

[dragonblood9999]

Make sure you're sharing an internet connection with the hostednetwork from your main internet connection.

it is connected to my main connection but still no SP.
maybe its because i am using my pcs built in wifi card for internet(instead of wired) and a wifi usb adapter as the AP?
i don't have a ethernet cable long enough to reach my room


i can go onto the eshop with the attwifi connection so i know its working and it finds a Nintendo zone
i've also set the cooldown to 15 seconds and the mac timer interval to 300 seconds(5min)
i also know that its changing the mac address of my usb wifi adapte

 

[pBullet]

Team Fail:

Thanks for helping me out so far with this strange problem, but I think I found a possible solution here and perhaps here.

Both deal with setting up a wired connection to share its net with another connection. Implementing this could stop problems with it being removed on mac change. As long as the wired connection is called "Ethernet", the wireless card called "Wi-Fi" and the wireless point called "attwifi"

 

[loco365]

Team Fail:

Thanks for helping me out so far with this strange problem, but I think I found a possible solution here and perhaps here.

Both deal with setting up a wired connection to share its net with another connection. Implementing this could stop problems with it being removed on mac change. As long as the wired connection is called "Ethernet", the wireless card called "Wi-Fi" and the wireless point called "attwifi"

Yeah, that's the same setup I currently have. I don't have a second WiFi adapter, so I just use an ethernet cable and let my laptop's wireless card work as the access point.

 

[pBullet]

I'm using Windows 8.1 myself. Maybe that is the reason?

 

[loco365]

I'm using Windows 8.1 myself. Maybe that is the reason?

I'm using 8.1 as well, so that couldn't be a reason.

Anyways, I'm working on the next build. I'm still unsure of a version number for it, but I do have the non-intrusive notifications done, and I think I have the Next button working properly. I made some small modifications so it's not a sleeping thread, rather, it's in a loop until the time has passed, that way, it can check if a button has been pressed, and it can pause/resume/go to next. I think I know how I'm going to implement the pause/resume button though, and if it works as expected, a new version isn't too far away

 

[pBullet]

Well, I've gone back to the manual way of changing macs and I'm not having any issues.

Really wish automation would work, but oh well.

 

[loco365]

Well, I've gone back to the manual way of changing macs and I'm not having any issues.

Really wish automation would work, but oh well.

If you want to, check with people in this thread. They might be able to get it working for you better than I can. I can tell you that it's some kind of issue with your setup, and not with MACycle, because all MACycle does is automate the process that one does manually.

Anyways, I've been tinkering with the code, and I now have preliminary support for Pause/Resume and Next buttons, however, CPU usage may slightly increase (I need further testing on this).

 

[pBullet]

I figured out a way to do it even more effectively...

The program Virtual Router keeps the virtual router settings preserved (as well as showing what is currently connected), and it keeps the Ethernet connection going when MACycle changes my MAC.

 

[Deleted User]

I am having issues with this. As far as I can tell I have everything set up right, but I do not get ANY street passes. I am using a list of MAC addresses I got from a spreadsheet for setting up a homepass, and the list is 160+ long, and it's a list I know other people are using.

Here's my setup: Laptop with internal wifi card and ethernet, which is plugged into my router. I have renamed the wifi card to "Wi-Fi" and I have set up a hosted wireless network as per the command lines. I've set up MacCycler, and it is cycling through mac addresses, but I have let it run for 20+ hours and have gotten NO Street Passes. Any thoughts?

 

[pBullet]

I looked into the matter of MACycle, and one of the faults for some setups and wireless cards is that MACycle does not have ICS management. For some set-ups, the ICS policy is overwritten or ignored when the wireless card is restarted, and then when running:

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

The access point is created however it has no shared connection, making the script completely useless and it cannot cycle without the connection dropping.
Other programs, like Connectify and Virtual Router, seem to have no problems with making the connection or running alongside with MACycle (most of the time) simply because said program's ICS management is being used.
Why not implement this: https://github.com/utapyngo/icsmanager
In the same folder you extracted icsmanager, you can call it through command prompt such as:

icsmanager enable "Ethernet" "attwifi"

I don't really know how to code in .NET but I do know how to make a batch file.
homepass.bat

echo off
for /f "delims=" %%a in (G:\homepass\all_macs.txt) do call set "$$%%random%%=%%a"
(for /f "tokens=1,* delims==" %%a in ('set $$') do echo(%%b)>all_macs.txt
for /f "delims=" %%x in (G:\homepass\all_macs.txt) do call G:\homepass\mac_cycler.bat %%x

mac_cycler.bat

set macaddr=%1
macshift -i "Wi-Fi" %macaddr%
echo Cooling down...
timeout 6
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
icsmanager enable "Ethernet" "attwifi"
echo Switching to next MAC address in 1,800 seconds (30 minutes)...
timeout 1800
netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

And then a file called "all_macs.txt" contains all the MAC addresses, one per line. It randomly cycles through them. You can remove the randomized cycler by changing homepass.bat to this:

echo off
for /f "delims=" %%x in (G:\homepass\prime_macs.txt) do call G:\homepass\mac_cycler.bat %%x

I am having issues with this. As far as I can tell I have everything set up right, but I do not get ANY street passes. I am using a list of MAC addresses I got from a spreadsheet for setting up a homepass, and the list is 160+ long, and it's a list I know other people are using.

Here's my setup: Laptop with internal wifi card and ethernet, which is plugged into my router. I have renamed the wifi card to "Wi-Fi" and I have set up a hosted wireless network as per the command lines. I've set up MacCycler, and it is cycling through mac addresses, but I have let it run for 20+ hours and have gotten NO Street Passes. Any thoughts?

In command prompt, type getmac
This should return a small table of information of your transports with their mac addresses and their current state. There should technically be three of them (your Ethernet, your Wireless card, and then your virtual network), you might have more. Look for the mac that MACycle assigned in your table, and see if both transports say "Media disconnected". If so, your virtual network is not sharing connection properly and the reason could very well be the problem I was having.

 

[loco365]

pBullet I could probably add icsmanager to the application and add a command prompt command for it, if that solves the issue for some people. I can also try creating a toggle so that if it doesn't work, they can try using icsmanager if they want to fix it. Or, I could make a separate build for people that want to use icsmanager. But yeah, MACycle is basically a frontend for macshift, but I can make this an addon for the application so if their connection is constantly dropping, this could be a fix. I'm working on 1.40, and I was considering releasing it soon, but if you want me to, I can take a few extra days and code this in when I find time.

By the way, having this kind of input is very useful, because I don't have issues with my connection, but if you find a way to fix it, and you explain it like so, it makes fixing the bugs much easier.

 

[pBullet]

I'm by no means a programmer. I'm a web designer and dabble a lot with PHP and mostly markups (HTML, CSS, etc) and Photoshop.

I learned the process of creating a batch script by reading various sources and then by trial and error, testing on my machine. I had a lot of fun with it, so I have to admit not having MACycle work off the bat sort gave me some experience in doing automated tasks.

While that application I linked to works fairly well, you could also look at Virtual Router and see how it handles it (in a completely different way that I have no idea what it's doing):

https://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest#Current/VirtualRouter/VirtualRouter.ICS/

It might be easier for you to just implement icsmanager, but it's always nice to look at other things I guess. For my own particular setup, I made a batch file that runs macshift off a list of macs after I hit the 'enter' key. And then another one that automatically times out. This is literally the "pause" and "continue" features being asked for.

Virtual Router also shows currently connected clients as well, though that feature isn't really needed.

I'm don't mean to impede your release cycle, but it would help me those with similar setups to myself, and it would be nice to see some sort of ICS insurance at work. You could even add the options into MACycle, such as "Connection to share" and grab a list of transports

 

[lambstone]

Let me get this straight. This creates a open wifi hotspot that cycles mac address. How can we prevent unauthorized access to this network?

 

[Deleted User]

I've gone through and done all of that, pbullet. I'm eager to see if I can manage to actually get a streetpass now! I'll respond back when I check in. It's okay to leave my 3DS in sleep mode right?

 

[pBullet]

Let me get this straight. This creates a open wifi hotspot that cycles mac address. How can we prevent unauthorized access to this network?

A SoftAP must use the WPA2-PSK/AES cipher suite. You can specify the network name (SSID) that's broadcasted for the virtual wireless network; however, it must have WPA2-PSK (AES) encryption enabled. The wireless hosted network feature has a built-in DHCP server, so users are automatically assigned IP addresses.

 

[pBullet]

I've gone through and done all of that, pbullet. I'm eager to see if I can manage to actually get a streetpass now! I'll respond back when I check in. It's okay to leave my 3DS in sleep mode right?

If you did everything right and edited the batch files with the proper paths + downloaded macshift + downloaded icsmanager and placed them all in the same folder + run the batch from elevated command prompt, then yes! Just type

start homepass.bat

And it will open another command prompt and continue moving through the macs at a 30 minute interval rate.

In all honestly I'd just wait and see what @Team_Fail does with MACycle and the ICS management. If all goes well, then I won't even have to use a batch anymore or other programs!

 

[lambstone]

A SoftAP must use the WPA2-PSK/AES cipher suite. You can specify the network name (SSID) that's broadcasted for the virtual wireless network; however, it must have WPA2-PSK (AES) encryption enabled. The wireless hosted network feature has a built-in DHCP server, so users are automatically assigned IP addresses.

So wait, so that means that the hosted virtual AP will need to have WPA2 turned on? If that is the case, how can the 3DS detect it as a home pass? I was under the assumption that this MACycle program simple cycles the mac address of the hosted virtual AP.

Another side point, will this work if I use a software like... connectify to create the virtual hotspot?