Re: how to convert MAC address to ip address Hi, The only way to find that out is to inspect the ARP tables after generating some traffic (e.g. A ping) to that address. In IP address manager software, the reports of available and used IP Addresses in the network can be obtained. IP address management solutions can also export report to PDF/CSV/XLS format and is a very convenient software. IP manager software, based on the IP Address Manager (IPAM) scan results, provides the IP Availability Report of the network.
I am looking for an easy way to convert a MAC address to the corresponding IP address in a local network. In my case, there are only two devices: a very normal PC (192.168.0.1) and a scientific instrument which has an arbitrary IP address (192.168.0.xxx) hard coded in its ROM.
How would you communicate with a device when you don’t have the IP?
You might be in a situation where you don’t have the IP address of a device in a local network, but all you have is records of the MAC or hardware address.
Or your computer is unable to display its IP due to various reasons, and you are getting a “No Valid IP Address” error.
Finding the IP from a known MAC address should be the task of a ReverseARP application, the counterpart of ARP.
But RARP is an obsolete protocol with many disadvantages, so it was quickly replaced by other protocols like BOOTP and DHCP, which deal directly with IP addresses.
In this article, we’ll show you how to find IPs and device vendors using MAC addresses with different methods for free.
Understanding ARP
ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) is the protocol in charge of finding MAC addresses with IPs in local network segments.
It operates with frames on the data link layer.
As you might already know, devices in the data link layer depend on MAC addresses for their communication.
Their frames encapsulate packets that contain IP address information.
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A device must know the destination MAC address to communicate locally through media types like Ethernet or Wifi, in layer 2 of the OSI model.
Understanding how ARP works can help you find IPs and MAC addresses quickly.
The following message flow diagram can help you understand the concept:
The local computer sends an ARP REQUEST message to find the owner of the IP address in question.
This message is sent to all devices within the same segment or LAN through a broadcast MAC (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF) as the destination.
Finding IPs with ARP
You can use ARP to obtain an IP from a known MAC address.
But first, it is important to update your local ARP table in order to get information from all devices in the network.
Send a ping (ICMP echo reply) to the entire LAN, to get all the MAC entries on the table.
To ping the entire LAN, you can send a broadcast to your network.
Open the Command Prompt in Windows or terminal in macOS and type.
ping 192.168.0.255
My subnet is 192.168.0.0/24 (mask of 255.255.255.0), so the broadcast address is 192.168.0.255 which can be calculated or found with a “Print Route” command in Windows or a “netstat -nr” in macOS. Or can also be obtained with a subnet calculator.
For Windows:Step 1.
This will open the command-line interface in Windows.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Step 4.
Let’s say you have the MAC address 60-30-d4-76-b8-c8 (which is a macOS device) and you want to know the IP.
From the results shown above, you can map the MAC address to the IP address in the same line.
The IP Address is 192.168.0.102 (which is in the same network segment) belongs to 60-30-d4-76-b8-c8.
You can forget about those 224.0.0.x and 239.0.0.x addresses, as they are multicast IPs.
For macOS:Step 1:
Step 2:
Finding IPs with the DHCP Server
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is the network protocol used by TCP/IP to dynamically allocate IP addresses and other characteristics to devices in a network.
The DHCP works with a client/server mode.
The DHCP server is the device in charge of assigning IP addresses in a network, and the client is usually your computer.
For home networks or LANs, the DHCP Server is typically a router or gateway.
If you have access to the DHCP Server, you can view all relationships with IPs, MACs, interfaces, name of the device, and lease time in your LAN.
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Using Sniffers
If you couldn’t find the IP in the ARP list or unfortunately don’t have access to the DHCP Server, as a last resort, you can use a sniffer.
Packet sniffers or network analyzers like Nmap (or Zenmap which is the GUI version) are designed for network security.
They can help identify attacks and vulnerabilities in the network.
With Nmap, you can actively scan your entire network and find IPs, ports, protocols, MACs, etc.
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If you are trying to find the IP from a known MAC with a sniffer like Nmap, look for the MAC address within the scan results.
How to find the Device and IP with a Sniffer?
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Finding out the device vendor from a MAC address
Ok, so now you were able to find out the IP address using “arp -a” command or through the DHCP Server.
But what if you want to know more details about that particular device?
What vendor is it?
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Your network segment or LAN might be full of different devices, from computers, firewalls, routers, mobiles, printers, TVs, etc.
And MAC addresses contain key information for knowing more details about each network device.
First, it is essential to understand the format of the MAC address.
Convert Mac Address To Ip Address
Traditional MAC addresses are 48 bits represented in 12-digit hexadecimal numbers (or six octets).
The first half of the six octets represent the Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI) and the other half is the Network Interface Controller (NIC) which is unique for every device in the world.
There is not much we can do about the NIC, other than communicating with it.
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But the OUI can give us useful information about the vendor if you didn’t use Nmap, which can also give you the hardware vendor.
A free online OUI lookup tool like Wireshark OUI Lookup can help you with this.
Just enter the MAC address on the OUI search, and the tool will look at the first three octets and correlate with its manufacturing database.
Final Words
Although the RARP (the counterpart of ARP) was specifically designed to find IPs from MAC addresses, it was quickly discontinued because it had many drawbacks.
RARP was quickly replaced by DHCP and BOOTP.
But ARP is still one of the core functions of the IP layer in the TCP/IP protocol stack.
It finds MAC addresses from known IPs, which is most common in today’s communications.
ARP works under the hood to keep a frequently used list of MACs and IPs.
But you can also use it to see the current mappings with the command arp -a.
Aside from ARP, you can also use DHCP to view IP information. DHCP Servers are usually in charge of IP assignments.
If you have access to the DHCP server, go into the DHCP Client list and identify the IP with the MAC address.
Finally, you can use a network sniffer like Nmap, scan your entire network, and find IPs, and MACs.
If you only want to know the vendor, an online OUI lookup like Wireshark can help you find it quickly.
Occasionally, one discovers what may appear to be a rogue or unidentified device on the local home network. The IP address is known, but little else. This HOWTO shows one way to convert that IP address to a MAC address, then a manufacturer.
Recently, Little Snitch, a security tool, threw up a notice about something odd happening with one of my devices. (I'm still working on figuring that part out with the help of Cocoatech Support, maker of Path Finder. Note: 4/1/2009: turns out to be an aggressive Samba search by Path Finder --- something that can be suppressed in PF's preferences.) By the way, Little Snitch is a tool I highly recommend. Anyway, here's the dialog I got.
Little Snitch Doing Its Job -- And Creating a Mystery
My first question was, 'What MAC address is this?' The MAC address is the Media Access Control (MAC) address assigned according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard for identifying Ethernet devices. The hexadecimal number is in the form XX:XX:XX:YY:YY:YY where XX:XX:XX identifies the manufacturer and YY:YY:YY identifies the device ID assigned by the manufacturer. XX or YY ranges from 00 to hexadecimal FF (0 to 255)
For example, the leading XX:XX:XX of 00:22:41 is assigned to Apple. Even though there can be 256^3 = 16.7 million devices per manufacturer code, many companies like Apple need more than one of the manufacturer codes. For example, Apple also has: 00:21:E9. And many others in fact.
Dumping the ARP Cache
Sounds cool, huh? If you can dump you computer's ARP cache, then you've achieved guru status. The way to do this is to open the Terminal app and ping the suspicious IP address. As an analogy, think of that as something like a submarine sending out a sonar ping. It bounces off the target and returns information.
How To Get Mac Address From Ip
Hit CTRL-C to stop after a few seconds. When your UNIX system pings the other device, it's really using the MAC addresses. You can dump that ping information with the following command in the Terminal:
When you do this, you may also see other devices that have communicated recently. Now we know the MAC address of the device with IP address 192.168.1.2, and it starts with 00:22:41. (I've obscured some of the data with a red block for the sake of privacy.)
The next step is to go the IEEE Standards Association Website that has the 'Organizationally Unique Identifier' (OUI) database and enter the first three hex codes, with the colons replaced by dashes:
Convert 00:22:41 to 00-22-41 and Enter in Search Field
When I did that, the results came back as follows:
That assured me that the device in question was indeed an Apple product. Once I realized that, I looked for other Apple products in my office. It turned out to be an iPhone.
Researching Your Network
Convert Ipv6 To Mac Address
Recently, I made a list of all my MAC addresses for equipment I own, but I forgot to add the MAC address of the iPhone. So when I saw a mysterious MAC address, I got curious and decided to dig further. Using the techniques above really helped.
Mac To Ip Conversion
Finally, there is a Mac OS X GUI app called IP Scanner from 10base-t-interactive Software that will show you all the devices on your network and also reveal the MAC address. It is a bit on the expensive side (US$30) but it's great for users who don't feel comfortable on the command line. I found it to be a little bit buggy as well. Also, it will not look up the OUI code, so you'll still have to do that yourself.
Convert Mac To Ip Address
This technique can also come handy when you're trying to identify some of your HDTV components, if you've added them to your LAN. Sometimes, manufacturers of TV equipment aren't so forthcoming or experienced as they add Ethernet capability to their TV devices. For example, I have a Samsung device with Ethernet, but the company doesn't (choses not to) supply the MAC address. Some investigation is then required using the above techniques.
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