How to keep Host ID from changing on Linux

I am currently on a trial of matlab and my host ID changes upon completely random circumstances, I can have consequtive launches with no problem then suddenly it says my hwid is mismatched, happened once when I installed new desktop to get dark mode, then just randomly a few times. I am on Arch, what could be causing this? It's not like it changes every other launch either

> matlab
MATLAB is selecting SOFTWARE rendering.
License checkout failed.
License Manager Error -9
Host ID '125e69df2eff' in the license file does not match your computer's host ID: "1643c734f6fd f02f741d5011 f02f741d4fb4". 
To resolve this issue, reactivate your license.

Troubleshoot this issue by visiting: 
https://www.mathworks.com/support/lme/9

Diagnostic Information:
Feature: MATLAB 
License path: /home/ciel/.matlab/R2024b_licenses:/home/ciel/MATLAB/2024B/licenses/license.dat:/home/ciel/MATLAB/2024B/licenses/trial_12942131_R2024b.lic 
Licensing error: -9,57.
Unable to launch MVM server: License Error: Licensing shutdown
> ./MATLAB/2024B/bin/glnxa64/MathWorksProductAuthorizer
> matlab
MATLAB is selecting SOFTWARE rendering.
> matlab -nosoftwareopengl
License checkout failed.
License Manager Error -9
Host ID '1643c734f6fd' in the license file does not match your computer's host ID: "2652814a85c3 f02f741d5011 f02f741d4fb4". 
To resolve this issue, reactivate your license.

Troubleshoot this issue by visiting: 
https://www.mathworks.com/support/lme/9

Diagnostic Information:
Feature: MATLAB 
License path: /home/ciel/.matlab/R2024b_licenses:/home/ciel/MATLAB/2024B/licenses/license.dat:/home/ciel/MATLAB/2024B/licenses/trial_12942131_R2024b.lic 
Licensing error: -9,57.
Unable to launch MVM server: License Error: Licensing shutdown
> ./MATLAB/2024B/bin/glnxa64/MathWorksProductAuthorizer
> matlab -nosoftwareopengl
> matlab

This is all within one single terminal session, and a few more has happened before this, what do I do?

[Star Strider]

Do as it suggests and contact Tech Support.

It even gives you the URL:

Troubleshoot this issue by visiting:

https://www.mathworks.com/support/lme/9

.

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.howtogeek.com/880124/how-to-permanently-change-your-mac-address-on-linux/

[Ciel]

Thank you for your response, as you can see in the terminal logs, I have already reactivated my license multiple times(and several times outside of the captured logs), I should also note that it was extra difficult as the command for reactivating changed in the past 10 years so I had to separately find the executable.

But it’s not a one time issue, it’s recurring, having to reactivate every single time I want to use the software is a problem I would like to fix. The thread mentioned having to have your username be root is also no longer applicable as it works with regular user, just for a short period only for some reason on my device. It mentions “configure your device to have static hostid” but provides no information. I have not done anything to actively change my device’s identifiers and I have been fine with every other hardware id system before like Mathematica and they have been working just fine, so either Matlab is sampling something it shouldn’t, or I have something that’s changing on my PC that all other hwid systems don’t look at, either case I dont think the support thread covers it.

[Ciel]

Hello the HowToGeek article appears to be how one would go about spoofing/changing their hwid, I have never done that before and all mac addresses should be as the hardware says, which I have reasons to believe did not change during the 2 minutes in between my command runs multiple times

[Walter Roberson]

You have Mac Address Randomization enabled.

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NetworkManager#Configuring_MAC_address_randomization for information on disabling it if you happen to be using Network Manager. (Different linux versions handle networks in different ways.)

[Ciel]

Late reply because I gave up on fixing the issue for a while. It was not MAC randomization. I run a single wired ethernet connection and do not randomize my mac address. And I followed the guide anyway and it still doesnn't fix the problem.

[Ragnar]

since i kept running in to this, this question is high up on search engines and matlab keeps using the mac address of your network card(s) as a host id, here's a work-around i cobbled together:

#!/bin/bash

# change these three to match your system (MAC is your "HOST ID", just add the colons)
USR=YOUR_USERNAME
MATLAB_CMD="/home/$USR/matlab/bin/matlab"
MAC=12:5e:69:df:2e:ff

sudo unshare -n --fork --mount-proc -- bash -lc '
ip link add dummy0 type dummy
ip link set dev dummy0 down
ip link set dev dummy0 address '$MAC'
ip link set dev dummy0 up
su - '$USR' -c "'$MATLAB_CMD'"
'

change as indicated and save it as a launcher. in short it creates a new network namespace (so basically an evironment with no network cards), sets up exactly one that has the MAC used for your host id, and launches matlab. for more info see the man pages of unshare, bash, ip, and su.