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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
This will open the command-line interface in Windows.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
From year to year, Cisco has updated many versions with difference questions. The latest version is version 6.0 in 2018. What is your version? It depends on your instructor creating your class. We recommend you to go thought all version if you are not clear. While you take online test with netacad.com, You may get random questions from all version. Each version have 1 to 10 different questions or more. After you review all questions, You should practice with our online test system by go to 'Online Test' link below.
Version 5.02 | Version 5.1 | Version 6.0 | Online Assessment |
Chapter 5 Exam | Chapter 5 Exam | Chapter 5 Exam | Online Test |
Next Chapter | |||
Chapter 6 Exam | Chapter 6 Exam | Chapter 6 Exam | Online Test |
Lab Activities | |||
5.3.1.3 Packet Tracer – Identify MAC and IP Addresses | |||
5.3.2.8 Packet Tracer – Examine the ARP Table |
Answer Note: Red font color or gray highlights indicate text that appears in the Answer copy only. Optional activities are designed to enhance understanding and/or to provide additional practice.
5.3.1.3 Packet Tracer – Identify MAC and IP Addresses
Part 1: Gather PDU Information
Part 2: Reflection Questions
This activity is optimized for viewing PDUs. The devices are already configured. You will gather PDU information in simulation mode and answer a series of questions about the data you collect.
Note: Review the Reflection Questions in Part 2 before proceeding with Part 1. It will give you an idea of the types of information you will need to gather.
Test | At Device | Dest. MAC | Src MAC | Src IPv4 | Dest IPv4 |
Ping from 172.16.31.2 to 10.10.10.3 | 172.16.31.2 | 00D0:BA8E:741A | 000C:85CC:1DA7 | 172.16.31.2 | 10.10.10.3 |
Hub | — | — | — | — | |
Switch1 | 00D0:BA8E:741A | 000C:85CC:1DA7 | — | — | |
Router | 0060:4706:572B | 00D0:588C:2401 | 172.16.31.2 | 10.10.10.3 | |
Switch0 | 0060:4706:572B | 00D0:588C:2401 | — | — | |
Access Point | — | — | — | — | |
10.10.10.3 | 0060:4706:572B | 00D0:588C:2401 | 172.16.31.2 | 10.10.10.3 |
Repeat the process in Step 1 and gather the information for the following tests:
Answer the following questions regarding the captured data:
From year to year, Cisco has updated many versions with difference questions. The latest version is version 6.0 in 2018. What is your version? It depends on your instructor creating your class. We recommend you to go thought all version if you are not clear. While you take online test with netacad.com, You may get random questions from all version. Each version have 1 to 10 different questions or more. After you review all questions, You should practice with our online test system by go to 'Online Test' link below.
Version 5.02 | Version 5.1 | Version 6.0 | Online Assessment |
Chapter 5 Exam | Chapter 5 Exam | Chapter 5 Exam | Online Test |
Next Chapter | |||
Chapter 6 Exam | Chapter 6 Exam | Chapter 6 Exam | Online Test |
Lab Activities | |||
5.3.1.3 Packet Tracer – Identify MAC and IP Addresses | |||
5.3.2.8 Packet Tracer – Examine the ARP Table |
There are 20 questions worth 5 points each for a possible score of 100.