How to detect MAC address of active wireless access point?

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gjh3124

Hi,

I have a wireless network with an access point and range extender.
Both devices are configured with the same essid and channel.

The wireless network works fine across the area of the access point and
range extender.

Both devices show in NetStumbler.

Question is: how, in Win XP SP2, can I detect the MAC address of the
"transmitter" being used by Win XP?

If there is an answer to the above, is it possible to select a
particular access point in Win XP?

Thanks and regards,

Geoff.
 
try arp command.

netwprk faqs To find out a remote computer's MAC/Physical Address, use arp -a ip, for example, arp -a 192.168.0.1. Another way to find out MAC is check DHCP records. ...
www.chicagotech.net/netfaqs.htm


Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
Hi,

I have a wireless network with an access point and range extender.
Both devices are configured with the same essid and channel.

The wireless network works fine across the area of the access point and
range extender.

Both devices show in NetStumbler.

Question is: how, in Win XP SP2, can I detect the MAC address of the
"transmitter" being used by Win XP?

If there is an answer to the above, is it possible to select a
particular access point in Win XP?

Thanks and regards,

Geoff.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried the <arp -a> command on a WinXP SP2 machine and got the
following result:

WinXp SP2
<arp -a>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interface: 192.168.1.5 --- 0x3
Internet Address Physical Address Type
192.168.1.1 00-50-ba-80-15-17 dynamic
192.168.1.6 00-0c-41-6a-93-87 dynamic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mac addresses in the output are the correct mac addresses for those
machines but there is no indication of the mac address of the wireless
access point that those machines are using.

My network uses a Linux server, so I tried a similar approach on the
server, with the following result:

Linux server
<arp -a>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
slr (192.168.1.6) at 00:12:17:A7:32:CD [ether] on eth0
gjhdell (192.168.1.5) at 00:12:17:A7:32:CD [ether] on eth0
router (192.168.0.1) at 00:50:BA:99:9A:AA [ether] on eth1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mac address for the 'router' is correct. The mac address for the
other 2 (192.168.1.6 and 192.168.1.5) is the mac address of one of the
wireless access points.

The 'eth0' and 'eth1' are the 'internal' (connected to the local
network) and 'external' (connected to the internet) networks
respectively.

Is there a way to get WinXP to report the mac address of the wireless
access point being used, that is, as reported from the Linux server?

Thanks,

Geoff.
 
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