How to Retrieve Remote MAC Address

 

Triggered by Lance Robinson blog post, here is another (quick & dirty, not heavily tested) way to get remote MAC address:

 

function Get-MacAddress{

    param( [string]$ip= $(throw "Please specify IP number") )

    arp -d; # clear arp cache
    $ping = (new-object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping).Send($ip);
    $mac = arp -a;
    if($ping){
        ($mac | ? {$_ -match $ip}) -match "([0-9A-F]{2}([:-][0-9A-F]{2}){5})" | out-null;
        $matches[0];
    }
}

 

 

The manual version:

1. Ping the remote machine.
2. Check the local ARP table for a match.

 

C:\WINDOWS>ping 10.0.0.101

Pinging 10.0.0.101 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.101: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.101:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 1ms

C:\WINDOWS>arp -a

Interface: 10.0.0.105 --- 0x4
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  10.0.0.101            00-09-6b-c6-ab-29     dynamic
  10.0.0.138            00-16-e3-37-d2-47     dynamic

 

Shay