# Inquiry on setting machine-id value in Fedora

**URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/inquiry-on-setting-machine-id-value-in-fedora/13668
**Category:** General
**Tags:** guide
**Created:** 2023-08-18T19:19:31Z
**Posts:** 5

## Post 1 by @Overdrive — 2023-08-18T19:19:31Z

Hi,

I followed the [privacy tweaks](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/os/linux-overview/#privacy-tweaks), but once the machine id was changed, it caused a double entry for safe mode in the grub menu when the computer is first booted. One entry for the original machine-id and one entry for the new machine-id. Was there a specific way I’m supposed to modify this value?

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## Post 2 by @dumpster — 2023-08-18T20:10:31Z

/etc/machine-id (that’s its location on every distro I’ve tried) is just a plaintext file containing one value on a single line. I use the following command to replace it with the Whonix generic ID.

> echo ‘b08dfa6083e7567a1921a715000001fb’ | sudo tee /etc/machine-id

[echo](https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/echo.1.html) displays a string and sends it to stdout. | sudo [tee](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/tee.1.html) reads from stdout and, as a superuser, overwrites the designated file with the contents of stdout

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## Post 3 by @Overdrive — 2023-08-18T20:12:21Z

I just manually opened the file using nano and deleted the original value and replaced it with the Whonix generic ID. Would there be any real difference between what I did and what you did?

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## Post 4 by @dumpster — 2023-08-18T20:13:15Z

Nope, those are both simply editing the file to replace the value.

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## Post 5 by @Overdrive — 2023-08-18T20:28:03Z

Is there a way to fix the double values in the GRUB menu? I was thinking of using the grubby tool, but wasn’t 100% sure of which one to remove.