Wi-Fi Address Changes in macOS 15 Sequoia

Introduction

One of the newly introduced features in macOS 15 Sequoia is the ability to use private Wi-Fi addresses aka “MAC address randomisation”. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102509 By default the new setting has been changed to 'Rotating' and unfortunately this does currently pose a problem when connecting to Wi-Fi networks such as eduroam.

Affected devices

Any newly built macOS Sequoia 15 devices

*Note Any devices that have updated to Sequoia with existing eduroam connection settings will be unaffected.

New Wi-Fi Settings

The Private Wi-Fi Address feature offers these settings, which you can change at any time if you have administrative functionality:

• Off: When set to Off, your device uses its hardware MAC address.
• Fixed: When set to Fixed, your device uses a private address, but the private address doesn’t rotate, regardless of the network's security or length of time since you last joined the network. Your device chooses Fixed by default when joining a new network that uses WPA2 or stronger security.
• Rotating: When set to 'Rotating', your device uses a private address that rotates to a different private address every 2 weeks. Your device chooses 'Rotating' by default when joining a new network that uses weak security or no security.

How to change this setting for eduroam

• Choose Apple menu  > System Settings, then click Wi-Fi in the sidebar.

• Click the Details button or More Info button next to the network name eduroam.

• From the menu next to Private Wi-Fi Address, choose Off/Fixed

• Enter credentials and join network

Next steps

We are currently working on a solution to automate this setting for any Orchard Mac in order to seamlessly connect to eduroam.