Finding Your MAC Address On Wired And Wireless Network Cards
The Answers To The Question About Controlling Access To Media
Over the past few weeks, I have received several emails on Ethernet cards, both wired and wireless, and more specifically, MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. I think the main reason I've gotten so many questions about Ethernet cards and MAC addresses is that people are trying to secure their home wireless networks and their desire to use MAC address filtering. This type of filter on wireless networks can be configured to allow or deny specific computers to use or connect to the wireless network, based on the MAC address.
My first thought was to write an article on MAC addresses and wireless Ethernet. After thinking about it, I decided to delve into this topic and look into specific information about Ethernet cards and communication. Several ways to find your MAC address and more
There are several ways to find Ethernet and communication protocol information. Many Ethernet card manufacturers have proprietary software that can reveal this information, but they work differently depending on the manufacturer. Therefore, we will use the Windows 2000 and XP ipconfig utility, as it is available on most Windows operating systems.
First, go to Start -> Run and type cmd without the quotes. Then hit the Enter key. On the command line, type ipconfig / all, again without the quotes. Actually just typing ipconfig without / all will work, but it will only give you abbreviated information about your network cards. Here is an example of what you can see by typing the ipconfig / all command with each element commented out in green letters:
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There are several ways to find Ethernet and communication protocol information. Many Ethernet card manufacturers have proprietary software that can reveal this information, but they work differently depending on the manufacturer. Therefore, we will use the Windows 2000 and XP ipconfig utility, as it is available on most Windows operating systems. First, go to Start -> Run and type cmd without the quotes. Then hit the Enter key. On the command line, type ipconfig / all, again without the quotes. Actually just typing ipconfig without / all will work, but it will only give you abbreviated information about your network cards. Here is an example of what you can see by typing the ipconfig / all command:
Ipconfig / All output commands
Windows IP settings
Host name. . . . . . . . . . . . : Home computer
This is the name of your computer, normally defined during the Windows installation. However, it can be changed after installation.
Primary DNS Suffix. . . . . . . : domain.com
If your computer is part of a network such as a Microsoft Windows domain, this element may contain the domain name.
Type of node. . . . . . . . . . . . : Stranger
The node type can say Unknown, peer-to-peer, or, in some cases, hybrid. This is a setting that has to do with the Windows Internet Naming Services used on certain types of Windows domain networks. IP routing enabled. . . . . . . . : No
This setting determines whether Windows XP or 2000 will function as an IP router. If you have two or more network cards, you can configure your system to act as a router, sending communication requests from one network to another. Windows 2000 can be configured to do this quite simply; Windows XP will require a registry change.
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy is another node-type setting that we discussed earlier. Normally this is not a necessary set up on a small home or office network or on newer types of Microsoft Windows domains.
Ethernet Adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:
If you have multiple ethernet (network) cards in your systems, like I do on this laptop, you will have more listings. This appears to be the second ethernet card, an internal wireless ethernet card.
Description. . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 802.11b / g WLAN
This is the description of the Ethernet card, usually the name/manufacturer and type of the Ethernet card. In this case, it's a Broadcom wireless ethernet card built into my laptop.
Physical address. . . . . . . . . : 00-90-4B-F1-6E-4A
And here we have the MAC address. The MAC address is a 48-bit hexadecimal code and is assumed to be a totally unique address. It has 48 bits because each number or letter in hex represents 8 bits. Hexadecimal numbers range from 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, A, B, C, D, E, F. There are 6 alphanumeric codes, so 6 * 8 = 48 ( bit). The first 3 codes identify the card manufacturer and the remaining codes are used to create a unique number. In theory, there should never be a card with the same MAC address on a local network. However, there are some exceptions. There are software tools that allow you to modify this code. Indeed, this is a step some hackers take to attack other systems on a local network. I say local network because MAC addresses cannot be routed between network segments. By spoofing this address, you can impersonate another machine on the local network. Traffic that was intended for its intended purpose can be redirected to the hacker's machine. This is the address you would also use to populate a MAC address or physical address table when configuring your wireless access point to support MAC address filtering.
DHCP enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yup
DHCP, or Dynamic Host Control Protocol, if enabled, means your computer's IP address is being provided by a DHCP server on your network. The DHCP server could be your wireless access point, cable / DSL router, cable modem, or server on the network. Also, if a DHCP server is not enabled on the network, the computer's operating system will automatically generate a random IP address within a certain predefined range. This means that a group of systems can be networked without having to manually assign IP settings.
IP address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.117
This parameter gives you your current IP address. The address listed above is what is called a "private" address. There are some classes of IP addresses that have been reserved for private use. This means for your internal, local, or private network at home or in the office. These addresses are not, or should not, be routable on the Internet. The Internet routes so-called valid IP addresses. The cable / DSL router or cable modem has a valid IP address assigned to its external network interface. The external interface can be the telephone line or the cable TV cable.
Subnet mask. . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
A subnet mask is a special number, or in a sense, a filter, which divides your IP address, in this case, your private IP address, into certain groups. IP addresses and subnet masks can be a tricky business and it would take a full article to review them.
Default gateway. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.254
The default gateway, the IP addresses listed above, is the IP address of the device that will direct your request, for example when trying to browse a website, to the Internet. It's a little more complicated than that, as gateways or routers can route traffic to different networks, even to other private networks. In your home or small office, this gateway is most likely your cable / DSL modem or router.
DHCP server. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.49
The DHCP server, we remember that we talked about it a little earlier, is the device that assigns an IP address and other information to your computer. DHCP servers can assign all kinds of information such as; Default gateway, the domain name server (DNS), IP address, subnet mask, time server, and much more.
DNS server. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.49, 64.105.197.58
DNS servers are internal or external servers that resolve fully qualified domain names (FQDNs), such as www.defendingthenet.com, into IP addresses. This is because the computers do not actually broadcast their requests using the domain name, but use the IP address assigned to the fully qualified domain name. For most home or small office users, the primary DNS server is the IP address of the cable / DSL router. The cable / DSL router queries an external DNS server on the Internet to perform the actual resolution from the FQDN to the IP address. The address 192.168.0.49 is an internal private device on my network, while 64.105.197.58 is an external Internet public DNS server and is there in case my router has trouble performing DNS resolution tasks.
Contract obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Sunday 19 March 2006 18:38:16
This information tells you when your computer received its IP address and other information from a DHCP server. You'll notice it says Lease Got because most DHCP servers only lease you the IP address from a pool of available addresses. For example, your group can be between 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.50. Therefore, your DHCP server has 50 IP addresses to choose from when you assign your computer its IP address.
The contract expires. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday 29 March 2006 21:38:16
When the IP address, assigned by the DHCP server, expires, it will try to give you the same or another IP address. Normally this function can be changed on the DHCP server. For example, on some fully functional DHCP servers, you can configure the lease to never expire or expire within 1 day, and so on. Why are MAC addresses so important and how do they work?
To go back to the MAC address for a moment. You may think that IP addresses are the most important when it comes to network communication. The reality is that MAC addresses are very important because without them computers would not be able to communicate over Ethernet networks. When a computer wants to talk to another computer on a local network, it will make a broadcast
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