Running client commands from asp.net app

[Guest]

Is it possible to develop a control to run a small executable on a client
machine from an asp.net application? I am trying to automate getting the mac
address of each computer in a large office and I'm hoping to find a way to
run the getmac command on each pc from a web application so I can store it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

 

[Peter Rilling]

You would have to write something like an ActiveX control to do this. You
cannot do this in .NET.

 

[Remy]

I'm not the expert here, but if a client uses your web app, you
automatically get his IP address and I think you should be able to
resolve the IP into the MAC address.

Remy Blaettler
www.collaboral.com

 

[Peter Rilling]

I am not an expert either, so take my response with a grain of salt.

Since MAC addresses are not publicly visible (meaning they are not used for
Internet packet routing between subnets), I do not think that the IP address
can be used to resolve the MAC address. In addition, proxies and routers
may hide the actual machine that is making the request. Most companies
probably use some form of Network Address Translation so the public IP that
the remote server sees will belong to the routing device, not the machine
making the request.

Now as I read his message closer, he does mention that it is in a large
office so it might be within the same network. If that is the case, you are
right that he could find some tool or something that invokes the Address
Resolution Protocol
(http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/users/gorry/course/inet-pages/arp.html). I am
sure there are many implementations already available.

Also, if you are an admin on each machine, you might be able to use
something like WMI to enumerate and interrogate the machines on the network.
Never used WMI so I do not know what services it provides.