Finding a mac address locally

I was wondering if there was an easy way to find the mac adress of a local machine. Ok heres the problem: I will soon be setting up a small home network that is based around a wireless adsl router. The router documentation states that you can set up a list of allowed mac addresses (to try and stop wardirving in my front graden :) ). The problem is the startup screens for 2 of the computers display the mac address but it disapears to quickly to write down and the third computer does not display startup info (and im not alowed to go into the bios to change this). So like i said i was wondering if there was an easy way to get the mac address for each machine when i have physical access to them. Thanks

Run ipconfig /all, I believe the "Physical Address" is the mac address.

Cheers:

:)
ROTF...LOL

try this: with a web page open in your browser for a while, open the CLI and type in
"arp -a" at the prompt, without the quotes. You might get a response such as "No ARP entries found". This is because your ARP cache gets periodically flushed. Click on the refresh button in the tool bar of your browser. The CLI minimizes, so you'll have to open it again. Type
"arp -a" again, and you'll see the MAC address of your gateway device to the Internet.
Similarly, if you are on a LAN, when devices are talking to one another, their MAC addresses
will appear in the ARP cache. Address Resolution Protocol is a data link layer protocol that uses the MAC source and destination addresses in the frame headers to locate physical addresses of network interface cards on computers or interfaces on routers.
Switches especially, rely on MAC addresses to forward data between ports.

The reason for the ROTF comment: in typing this response and trying to make it as accurate as possible, I refreshed this page ( the one you get when replying to a thread), only to wipe out every thing I had typed into the reply box.

Anyway, more fun with computers....

If you have yet to install the wireless NICs in the machines then the MAC address should be printed on them also. Just make a note of them before installation.

ifconfig -a |grep HWaddr

:)

Quote:

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ifconfig -a |grep HWaddr

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ifconfig or ipconfig, depending on the OS.

And to add to Korpdeaths' reply, if the wireless NIC is of the PCMCIA type for
laptops, you can always slide them out and take a looksee.

Yes, if you do use ip and not if you might not be able to use grep ;)

Hey, Y'all dumbasses realize that the MAC addy is clearly shown in the connection properties dialog...

Windows
Network Connections>>WHateveryourconnection>>Properties

Linux should have something similar, it all depends on what distro you use, and what GUI you use...


Y'all had to get all snooty with him. CLI, ARP...

GUIs are for lazy *****s

WindowsXP has a command line tool called GetMac which can be used instead of ipconfig /all
getmac /FO csv
that command will get the job done.

Yes, GREP is not a valid command on Windoze boxes, although you can get Agrep, the windows port of the venerable grep tool for *nix.

:)

Quote:

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Hey, Y'all dumbasses realize that the MAC addy is clearly shown in the connection properties dialog...

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Sure, for the NIC installed on the local computer. And you can go to the next box and retrieve the info the same way. It's all fine and dandy if ya wanna do it that way, but heck, why not teach someone the functionality of the CLI. So you've added your two cents to the bit bucket and at the same time told us to put a lid on useful information...

...by accessing the functionality of the CLI, you can monitor events...see, someone reading this, might figure that its convenient not having to physically go to a client or whatever to retrieve a ****ing MAC address!!! Some folks are trying to network... :)

11 post made in this thread... Sadly, the only first 2 two were good ; the question and the correct SIMPLE answer!

Welcome to AO, where a simple answer get 5-6 differents answer for every OS living on the planet!!

hee hee thanks for the replys guys/girls. I should probably get back to setting up the network but i have such a short attention span....ooooh shiny thing...