MAC Numbers

Posted on
Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:44 am
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

MAC Numbers

A puzzlement... I have been using PiBeacon for over 3 years and currently have 4 rPi3s and one rPi Zero W configured... the original 2 Pi3s were set up wireless and then moved to wired ethernet connections, the next 2 Pi3s were initially set up cat 5 wired and still are, and the pi0 was set up and still is wireless. A couple of weeks ago, one of the original pi3s stopped communicating and I have been ignoring the problem till last weekend when I started to track it down and when I found it wasn't answering pings decided to do an IP scan to see if the DHCP had somehow changed it's address... Although the switch end shows that there's connection and data on that port, Angry IP scanner didn't find it anywhere on the network, so I guess I'm going to have to pull it out of the closet where it lives and get a real keyboard and screen on it to figure out what's wrong directly... but the OTHER issue I am seeing is that although the IPs are correct for the 4 remaining Pis, NONE of the MACs match what pibeacon shows from the setups. They're all still talking to and posting beacon and switch data to the plugin, so is there any reason to go through the "Change MAC number on a Pi" procedure for them? And how the heck could that have happened ITFP? I understand that maybe the original 2 are looking at the wireless MAC while the scanner is now looking at the ethernet adapter, but the others should be what they always were... Or is the MAC listed from the setup the Bluetooth adapter?

Posted on
Wed Jun 12, 2019 9:01 am
kw123 offline
User avatar
Posts: 8333
Joined: May 12, 2013
Location: Dallas, TX

Re: MAC Numbers

for the MAC numbers:

the RPIs have several MAC #s:
1. ethernet MAC - not used
2. Wifi MAC - not used
3. iBeacon signal MAC - used to ID the RPI (# 0-9) activated when "beaconloop.py" starts)
4. BLEconnect MAC# - not used - is active when BLE connect is used on the RPI for find (iPhone) BLEConnect devices


The ID for RPI 0-9 is the BLE MAC of its iBeacon signals, if it has the wrong IP number it is ignored (I should / will change that)
- it uses the iBeacon MAC as it is also an iBeacon and is used to calculate some parameters ie distance.

the ID for RPI10-19 is the RPI#, the IP number and the MAC #s are ignored

this might explain the MAC number differences you see.==> check the BLE mac number not the ip/ethernet/wifi MAC#


Karl

Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest