How To Ping By Mac Address?

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How To Ping By Mac Address?
Post Description: Is It Possible To Ping A Device Using Only The Mac Address Of The Machine? Or What Tools I Can Use To Check If A Device Is Connected To The Network
Tags: How, To, Ping, By, Mac, Address?
This Post Was Posted On Jan 11, 2010 By Webune Support #3047

How To Ping By Mac Address? by Webune Support

Hello,

Welcome to Webune Suppport Forums.

Today's questions is regarding networking. the question is:

"is it possible to ping a device using only the mac address of the machine? or what tools i can use to check if a device is connected to the network"

ANSWER: the answer is no. IP Address is layer 3 of the OSI Model, and the MAC Address belongs to Layer 2

however, there is a way for example, if i have a network printer connected to my LAN but i can't ping it. the printer may be in your network and you probably are just pinging the wrong ip address for that printer. so how do you find the correct ip address? this is what i would do

go to the printer, usually devices will have the MAC ADDRESS printed on the back, so for example, lets say my printer has this MAC ADDRESS:

01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa

so what i can do is run the arp command. to run the arp utility, open your command terminal. i am using windows 7 for this tutorial, so i will use windows DOS terminal.

ARP COMMAND:

arp -a

it will give you a list of all the devices recorded in your computer:

this is the output on my computer:

C:\Users\MYPC>arp -a

Interface: 192.168.0.2 --- 0xe
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.0.1           02-00-00-00-00-00     dynamic
  192.168.0.255         ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
  224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16     static
  224.0.0.252           01-00-5e-00-00-fc     static
  239.255.255.250       01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa     static
  255.255.255.255       ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static

Interface: 192.168.56.1 --- 0x12
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.56.255        01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa     static
  224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16     static
  224.0.0.252           01-00-5e-00-00-fc     static
  239.255.255.250       ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static

as you can see from the list, the device with 01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa is IP ADDRESS 192.168.56.1 so i can ping that device now.

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Ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff Invalid Mac Address

How To Ping IP Address In DOS

Chintan

#5463 1

your blog got help full to me for finding correct mac address related with ip

Sep 21, 2011 Reply Report abuse

Mike

#5338 2

this answer is wrong. you def can ping by mac address usin ssh.

Jul 22, 2011 Reply Report abuse

jill

#4259 3

is it possible to ping a mac address

Jul 28, 2010 Reply Report abuse

nah

#3295 4

this is all good to me.. lol :d

Nov 22, 2011 Reply Report abuse

sally

#3284 5

can i login using mac address to a printer

Jan 20, 2010 Reply Report abuse

webune

#3238 6

here's another trick

lets say you know the mac address for your device, you can bind that mac address an ip on your computer so when you ping the ip, it will look for that mac address

so lets say i have a printer with a mac address of: 01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa

open your DOS terminal and send this command
DOS COMMAND:

arp -s 192.168.1.120 01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa

now try pinging 192.168.1.120 - it will look for that device with that mac address we just assigned

Jan 11, 2010 Reply Report abuse

webune

#3237 7

here is more information about how to use the arp command:

Displays and modifies the IP-to-Physical address translation tables used by
address resolution protocol (ARP).

ARP -s inet_addr eth_addr [if_addr]
ARP -d inet_addr [if_addr]
ARP -a [inet_addr] [-N if_addr] [-v]

  -a            Displays current ARP entries by interrogating the current
                protocol data.  If inet_addr is specified, the IP and Physical
                addresses for only the specified computer are displayed.  If
                more than one network interface uses ARP, entries for each ARP
                table are displayed.
  -g            Same as -a.
  -v            Displays current ARP entries in verbose mode.  All invalid
                entries and entries on the loop-back interface will be shown.
  inet_addr     Specifies an internet address.
  -N if_addr    Displays the ARP entries for the network interface specified
                by if_addr.
  -d            Deletes the host specified by inet_addr. inet_addr may be
                wildcarded with * to delete all hosts.
  -s            Adds the host and associates the Internet address inet_addr
                with the Physical address eth_addr.  The Physical address is
                given as 6 hexadecimal bytes separated by hyphens. The entry
                is permanent.
  eth_addr      Specifies a physical address.
  if_addr       If present, this specifies the Internet address of the
                interface whose address translation table should be modified.
                If not present, the first applicable interface will be used.
Example:
  > arp -s 157.55.85.212   00-aa-00-62-c6-09  .... Adds a static entry.
  > arp -a                                    .... Displays the arp table.