How to get MAC address of a machine in a network without physical access to the machine.
I have a peer-to-peer network that uses a wireless router. The IP addresses are dynamic because they are assigned by the router.
That was a predicament when I needed to block workers from accessing some websites during official hours. My first attempt at blocking those website was not successful because I used the IP addresses. Of course, each day, a machine get assigned a different IP address by the router, I therefore needed to use the MAC address to identify the machines in my internet access restriction policy.
The challenge then was how to get the MAC address remotely without physically visiting each of the machine.
After searching online. I came across a little trick that worked. I felt I should document it here for future reference.
Ping the machine you want to get its MAC address for about 30seconds. This will make the MAC address of the machine to be cached in the ARP table of NIC on the machine you are currently on.
Step 1 - Open the command prompt window. It is usually under Accessories in WinXP.
Step 2 - Type the following CHDIR C (you only need to do this if you are not at the command prompt i.e. c:\)
Step 3 - Ping the remote machine (i.e. Type ping X.X.X.X replacing x.x.x.x with the ip address or the machine NAME).
Step 4 - After some echo replies from remote machine type arp -a (you will see the IP address of the machine displayed alongside the MAC address of the machine)
I hope this helps someone. Cheers.
