Identifying Items by MAC Address

[jim]

It's a long story, but I've got a list of MAC addresses here that I could really do with identifying. I've read before that it's possible to work out various bits and pieces from them - like you can say that if it starts with 00:21: then it must be a netgear router, or something like that.

Is that true? And if so, is there any good resource where I can find out such information?

[MaddAussie]

http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/

[spoon_]

If its on your local network, do arp -a and then nslookup on IPs assuming they're in your DNS zone.

[jim]

Lovely, thanks

[jim]

If its on your local network, do arp -a and then nslookup on IPs assuming they're in your DNS zone.

They used to be, not any more though

[smargh]

If you use DHCP, you might be able to link MACs to IPs.

[peterb]

MAC addresses are (in theory at least) globally unique. The first 3 octets identify the manufacturer, the remainder are unique to the device and are hard-wired into the device. I say theoretically, because although MAC addresses used to be hard wired (or at least in firmware) now that is not always the case. Some devices allow the MAC address to be changed to a user value. (Routers particularly.) The important thing from a network perspective is that on any subnet, MAC addresses must all be unique

The MAC address can be found from either data supplied with the device, or by probing it with an appropriate software tool (ifconfig or ipconfig for example) or by identifying it from a DHCP or ARP table in a layer 3 device such as a router.

Mad-Aussie posted a link to one decoder - here is another

http://www.techzoom.net/tools/check-mac.en