[Chris Hexnode 26 October 2020 Chris Moderator]

Hey, @henrietta. Thanks for reaching out to us.

We’ve been getting a lot of similar queries lately and think this issue may have to do with the MAC randomization behavior introduced by Apple from iOS 14+ devices.

If you don’t already know, a MAC address is the physical address that is used to identify a device on a given network. By default, iOS 14+ devices will use a randomized MAC address for each Wi-Fi network.

This randomization behavior of the MAC address can be disabled by the student or from the Hexnode portal. To disable it from the portal, check the Disable MAC address randomization option in the Wi-Fi policy and associate with the required devices.

That’ll resolve the network connectivity issue on the newly upgraded iOS devices. If you encounter any problem, feel free to reply to us back so we can address your issue further.

Cheers!
Chris Wheeler
Hexnode UEM

[henrietta Participant 28 October 2020 henrietta Participant]

Solved! Still not clear about how mac address affects network connectivity though. Glad this worked though. Thanks.

[Daan Participant 4 November 2020 Daan Participant]

@henrietta It depends on your network service provider and the network authentication settings that you’ve configured. For example, we have centuryLink set up in our environment which uses the MAC address of the mobile devices to provide or limit network access. So when you upgraded to ios14, mac randomization will have kicked in for all the existing SSIDs on the devices causing connectivity issues.

[Emersyn Participant 6 November 2020 Emersyn Participant]

Looks like upgrading the OS messed up our wifi settings too…students having to re-register via the captive portal to connect to the school wifi. Will they have to do this often?  This mac randomization behaviour has been a huge pain for users depending on network systems and processes that rely on mac address as the sole device identifier.

[griffith Participant 8 November 2020 griffith Participant]

@emersyn Private mac address stays consistent for a given SSID as long as the device isn’t wiped, so the they might just have to register one more time. This is, if auto login is enabled in your router settings ofcourse. Wouldn’t recommend disabling mac randomization as it could impact user privacy.

[Chris Hexnode 9 November 2020 Chris Moderator]

Hey @emersyn,

According to Apple, the private address for a specific SSID will only change if:

• The device is wiped, or network settings are reset on the device.
• Starting with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8, if the device hasn’t joined the network in 6 weeks.

So, the students will have to sign in via the captive portal just once more after the OS update unless the above-mentioned scenarios occur.

Check out Apple’s doc for more information on the MAC randomization behavior on iOS devices.

Hope this helps. Do reach out if you’ve further queries.

Cheers!
Chris Wheeler
Hexnode UEM

[werner Participant 10 November 2020 werner Participant]

Does the disable mac randomization setting apply to all the SSIDs the device can connect to?

[Chris Hexnode 11 November 2020 Chris Moderator]

@werner No. It only applies to the SSID that you configured using the Wi-Fi policy.

Do reach out if you’ve further queries.

Have a great day!
Chris Wheeler
Hexnode UEM