How does the MAC address bit work?

Posted on
Wed Jan 13, 2016 5:49 pm
Hackencrash offline
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Location: UK

How does the MAC address bit work?

Many of my devices are DHCP like phones, etc. I noticed that when my phone changed its IP address it didn't appear as a separate entry in Fingscan, the created device was the same. Don't get me wrong, this is cool, but just wondered in what field it stored the MAC address to see if the device already existed?

The reason for the question is that if I use ordinary Fing to find someone's phone's MAC address, say on their WiFi network while I'm visiting, I could then pre-load Fingscan with those details as a new device on my network to save time - just a thought...

Posted on
Wed Jan 13, 2016 6:34 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: How does the MAC address bit work?

The Mac number of a device is shown in the "notes / description" column and in the variable listing in the first column.

The MAC # is THE key to identify each device. It normally does not change. It is hard coded (*) into the wifi adapter ( can be changed but not easy). All Wifi access point / router etc use that number to identify devices and re-assign ip numbers once a device goes away and comes back after a shorter period of time (after some days it forgets that # too)

You can not "preload" FINGSCAN easily. It has several parameters for each device that are not easily accessible. But you could do a "menu/save ipdevice to file", edit that file and do a "menu/restore..." that should do the trick. But you can easily screw that one up if you are not careful.


Karl

(*) see also discussion on randomizing iPhone MAC numbers under IOS 8+

Posted on
Wed Jan 13, 2016 6:49 pm
Hackencrash offline
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Posts: 246
Joined: Dec 16, 2015
Location: UK

Re: How does the MAC address bit work?

I do love Fingscan because it adds any new device it discovers as a new Indigo device. If I were writing a discovery plugin that's what I would do.

I understand the whole MAC address unique thing as I'm Cisco certified and want to understand more about this plugin so I can get the most out of it - hope that's OK?

Posted on
Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:02 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: How does the MAC address bit work?

hope that's OK?
sure... thats the fun part of it

FINGSCAN use the MAC# as THE key to identify, manage etc devices.

Karl

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