VISITOR INFORMATION

May 24, 2012

Computing Services MAC address

It is no longer necessary for visitors to determine their laptop's MAC address, so the information below is no longer needed but is retained in case it is of use for any other purpose.
A Media Access Control (MAC) address is a hardware address that uniquely identifies each node of a network. A MAC is a 48-bit Address usually represented in hexadecimal format with colons between every 8-bits. For example:
08:00:20:95:fb:83

Each company making an ethernet card is assigned a block of MAC addresses for their cards. A list of companies and their MAC assignments is available here.

To find out your MAC address, choose your operating system:
Linux
FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD
Solaris/NeXTStep
Windows 9x
Windows 2000/NT/XP
Macintosh


Linux
From a terminal on your linux box, as any user, type the following:
/sbin/ifconfig -a |grep HWaddr
You should see something like the following:
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:80:5F:CB:52:E7

FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD
From a terminal on your BSD box, as any user, type the following:

/sbin/ifconfig -a |grep ether
You should see something like the following:
        ether 00:d0:b7:bb:6f:f5

Solaris/NeXTStep
From a terminal on your Solaris/NeXTStep box, as root, type the following:

/sbin/ifconfig -a |grep ether
You should see something like the following:
        ether 00:d0:b7:bb:6f:f5

Windows 9x/Me
Click the Start Menu, then Run....
When the Run Window opens, type winipcfg and click Ok.
A window with the title IP Configuration should open.
winipcfg
Just below the ethernet adapter information heading, there should be a drop down list of adapters. It may say ppp. Click the arrow next to the adapter name to show the list.
If you have more than one adapter if your machine, select the one you will be using to connect to the IAS from the drop down list at the top of the window.
Do NOT Select the PPP Adapter.
After making your selection, the information below will change.
The MAC Address is called the Adapter Address


Windows 2000/NT/XP
Start a Command Prompt
On Windows NT 4.0/XP this is found on the Start Menu under Programs subsection Accessories or choose Run then type cmd into the text box. 

On Windows 2000 this is found on the Start Menu under Programs subsection Accessories

In the Command Prompt, type the following:

ipconfig /all
You should see something like the following:
Locate your ethernet adapter description. Under description, you will see the category labled Physical Address..... This is your MAC address that you will use when the registration page prompts you for it. NOTE: the MAC address is alphanumeric, and consists of 12 characters. Example: 00-B0-D0-86-BB-F7 
Note: Do NOT use the PPP Adapter

Macintosh
This assumes you are running OpenTransport on your Macintosh, which is the default networking software for versions 7.1 and above.
Click the Apple Menu, then Control Panels, then TCP/IP
From the Connect via: drop down list, select the adapter that contains the word Ethernet, this is usually "Ethernet Built-in" or some equivalent.
Under the File menu, click Get Info
The Information window should open. The MAC Address is called the  Hardware Address:

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