MAC Address Finder

A media access control address, or MAC address, is a unique identification code for each of your network interfaces. While MAC address is the most common name, it is also sometimes called a physical address, a burned-in address, or a hardware address.

Every individual piece of hardware on your local network has a MAC address typically assigned by the manufacturer of the device then stored on the hardware. The MAC address exists in addition to the IP address assigned by the local server or router and is essential for the functionality of network protocols like IP and TCP.

When packets are sent on the ethernet, they’re sent from a MAC address and to another MAC address. When a network adapter receives a packet, it checks to see if the packet’s destination MAC address matches its own. If the addresses match, then the packet is processed. If they don’t match, then the packet is discarded.

MAC addresses are also useful when it comes to filtering on wireless networks. Filtering is a process by which strangers are prevented from accessing a network while letting the people who need access get through. By using MAC addresses for identification, devices can still be identified even if their IP address changes.

Finding a MAC address on network manually often requires using a series of commands and knowing a lot about the specific system you’re working with beforehand.

To manually find a MAC address on a network, you first need to open the command prompt. After you enter either “ifconfig” on Linux or “ipconfig” on Mac, you’ll see the computer’s IP address, gateway address, subnet mask, and more.

From there you can determine the network number you will be scanning. Next, put in the “arp-a” command to get a list of all the active IP addresses connected to your local network. This list not only includes the IP addresses and allocation types (dynamic or static) for all the live hosts, it also lists the associated MAC addresses for all the IP addresses.

To use this manual method of finding MAC addresses on a network, you need to be familiar with the IP address of each active device on your network. This might work for very small networks, but not for most business networks.

A MAC address finder tool is built to scan your network for you. The tool can also help you correlate information tied to each of your devices. With an automated tool, it’s easier to find the MAC address you need and to correlate the information with data tied to all the other devices connected to your local subnets.

A MAC address finder is a tool that identifies the MAC addresses associated with the individual pieces of hardware on your network. A MAC address finder can match the MAC address with the IP address associated with the device. A good MAC address lookup tool will also match the MAC address with other information including a DNS, network card manufacturer, and manufacturer's address.

A MAC address finder works by searching through a list of switches to find the specific device tied to the MAC address you are searching for.

Once you have a MAC Finder gadget, enter the MAC address you’re searching for into the “MAC Address to Find” field in the gadget. For the gadget to find the right devices, you have to drag the switches from the Devices tab to the Devices to Search list in the MAC Finder gadget. The MAC address lookup tool will then search through the devices to find the one associated with the MAC address you entered into the tool.

The tool will then search through your subnets and create tables relating MAC addresses to IP addresses, manufacturer addresses, and DNS.

The benefits of using a MAC finder include helping you enhance your cybersecurity efforts. Making sure only authorized devices can access your network is key to maintaining cybersecurity and preventing a data breach. With changing IP addresses, it can be difficult to ensure you’re only giving access to the devices that need it while keeping out unauthorized ones. By finding MAC addresses, it can be easier to ensure the right devices can access your network and unauthorized devices don’t accidentally slip through the cracks, since MAC addresses are fixed to specific devices and do not change.

A MAC address finder can also help you control network access through a process called filtering. With filtering, the router is set to only accept specific MAC addresses, helping prevent strangers from gaining access to your network.

MAC address lookup solution is useful for improving organization and maintenance as well. A quality MAC finder tool not only finds devices based on MAC addresses, it can also automatically create tables to relate MAC addresses to other pertinent information about them. This includes IP addresses, manufacturer addresses, and DNS. You can also configure those tables as you wish, so you see the information relevant to your organization’s needs. With a MAC address finder, you can find key details about any of the devices at your fingertips.

SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset is designed to elevate the benefits of a standard MAC address finder with the 60+ tools included in the software.

ETS includes a network MAC address finder that lets you search subnets to create tables with key details about your devices. Those details include not only MAC addresses and IP addresses, but also information on DNS, manufacturer addresses, and the hostnames of the devices connected to your local subnets. ETS also helps with organization, letting you configure the tables to include the data you want to see from the included MAC scanner.

The ETS MAC address finder can let you check remote addresses in addition to local ones. By running the MAC address finder on a laptop that plugs in to the remote subnet, you can search for MAC addresses on the network. Alternatively, you can use ETS’s other tools to collect even more remote device data without needing to plug in to the remote subnet. For example, Network Sonar can provide detailed network inventory reports on remote devices. Using Switch Port Mapper, you can even remotely discover the MAC address, IP address, and hostname of devices connected to each port of a switch or hub.

With ETS, the MAC address finder is part of the larger collection of more than 60 tools, all of which can work together to provide you with deep insights into your network.

SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset comes with more than 60 tools to help with network management and troubleshooting—all of which are designed to be accessed from a single central desktop console. In addition to its MAC address finder, ETS also includes other helpful network discovery tools like Port Scanner, IP Network Browser, Subnet List, Ping Sweep, Network Sonar, Network Discovery Tool, SNMP Sweep, and Switch Port Mapper.

Beyond network discovery, ETS includes a variety of tools covering IP address monitoring, security, log management, network monitoring, diagnostics, config management, and SNMP.

A few of the other popular tools included in ETS are:

• Interface Monitor
• Network Traffic Generator
• Memory Monitor
• Traceroute
• DNS Analyzer
• Syslog Server
• WMI Browser

Read more about Engineer’s Toolset tools.