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How to get client mac address in PHP ..?

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  How to get client mac address in PHP ..? rrvasanth <vasanthaltimate@gmail.com> - 2011-11-21 03:15 -0800
    Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2011-11-21 11:36 +0000
    Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2011-11-21 07:16 -0500
    Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2011-11-21 16:18 +0000
      Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2011-11-21 17:43 +0100
        Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Doug Miller <doug_at_milmacdotcom@example.com> - 2011-11-21 15:17 -0500
          Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2011-11-21 21:54 +0000
            Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2011-11-22 01:20 +0100
              Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2011-11-21 22:14 -0500
              Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2011-11-22 09:28 +0000
                Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2011-11-22 13:38 +0100
    Re: How to get client mac address in PHP ..? Centurion <me@nowhere.example> - 2011-11-22 14:08 +1100

#3834 — How to get client mac address in PHP ..?

Dear friends...

 I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
this in PHP?

Thanks
Vasanth

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#3835

rrvasanth wrote:
> Dear friends...
> 
>  I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
> this in PHP?
> 

Try magic.

The only mac address the server sees is that of its upstream Ethernet* 
router, at best.

MAC addresses are purely Ethernet*.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

*strictly MAC addresses also apply to other  things like token ring etc, 
but who uses those these days?


Your only hope is to ask the browser to supply it in a cookie using 
probably javascript or java, but I very much doubt the browser would 
actually bn able to tell what it was.

And it would be trivial to fake it anyway.

Which makes the final point, which is that there is zero purpose in 
having it at all in the first place.

In short you want an impossible solution to a problem that has no 
purpose in the first place.


> Thanks
> Vasanth

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#3836

On 11/21/2011 6:15 AM, rrvasanth wrote:
> Dear friends...
>
>   I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
> this in PHP?
>
> Thanks
> Vasanth

Sorry, it's not possible.  It's not sent to your server. All you have 
available is the IP address.  And it's possible the client may not even 
have a MAC address, i.e. a dial-up client would have the MAC address of 
the dial-up server (don't laugh - there are still a lot of these around 
the world).

The real question is - what problem are you trying to solve?

-- 
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

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#3844

On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:

> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
> this in PHP?

You need a course in ethernet protocols. Then you'll understand why 
either (a) you can not need this information or (b) you have been given 
an impossible coding (or homework?) assignment.

Rgds

Denis McMahon

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#3845

Denis McMahon wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:
>> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
>> this in PHP?
> 
> You need a course in ethernet protocols.

You need to learn to spell "Ethernet" and understand what it is.

> Then you'll understand why either (a) you can not need this information
> or (b) you have been given an impossible coding (or homework?) assignment.

It is neither irrelevant nor impossible to obtain that information using 
PHP.  You would know that if you knew that MAC addresses do not require 
Ethernet.


PointedEars
-- 
> If you get a bunch of authors […] that state the same "best practices"
> in any programming language, then you can bet who is wrong or right...
Not with javascript. Nonsense propagates like wildfire in this field.
  -- Richard Cornford, comp.lang.javascript, 2011-11-14

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#3847

On 11/21/2011 11:43 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> Denis McMahon wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:
>>> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
>>> this in PHP?
>>
>> You need a course in ethernet protocols.
>
> You need to learn to spell "Ethernet" and understand what it is.

Oh, looky, a spelling fLame.
>
>> Then you'll understand why either (a) you can not need this information
>> or (b) you have been given an impossible coding (or homework?) assignment.
>
> It is neither irrelevant nor impossible to obtain that information using
> PHP.  You would know that if you knew that MAC addresses do not require
> Ethernet.
>
LMAO. How do you propose that he can do that?

Hint: re-read the post above as many times as needed until you realize 
that the OP wrote "MAC address" and not "IP address".

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#3848

On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:17:48 -0500, Doug Miller wrote:

> On 11/21/2011 11:43 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>> Denis McMahon wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:
>>>> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
>>>> this in PHP?
>>>
>>> You need a course in ethernet protocols.
>>
>> You need to learn to spell "Ethernet" and understand what it is.
> 
> Oh, looky, a spelling fLame.
>>
>>> Then you'll understand why either (a) you can not need this
>>> information or (b) you have been given an impossible coding (or
>>> homework?) assignment.
>>
>> It is neither irrelevant nor impossible to obtain that information
>> using PHP.  You would know that if you knew that MAC addresses do not
>> require Ethernet.
>>
> LMAO. How do you propose that he can do that?
> 
> Hint: re-read the post above as many times as needed until you realize
> that the OP wrote "MAC address" and not "IP address".

Actually, I would love to see TPEL code a web page that displayed the MAC 
address of any computer that requested it. However, it's impossible for 
him to do it! He does not have the ability to code such a page. He 
couldn't even manage it for the satisfaction of proving me wrong!

I know that the only MAC address that appears on packets arriving at my 
web server on my lan are those of my router (when a page is requested 
from outside the lan), or other interfaces on the lan. Anything connected 
over wireless to the wap presents the wap MAC address to the rest of the 
lan.

Of course, if the OPs application is hosted on a server using some other 
connection technology than ethernet, then my comments about ethernet 
might not apply, but to the best of my knowledge, most servers operate on 
ethernet connected hardware, and it's a fairly fundamental fact of 
ethernet networking that ethernet MAC addresses do not generally travel 
past media segment boundaries, such as routers and waps.

Rgds

Denis McMahon

psst Thomas, prove me wrong, code a web page that displays the MAC 
address of the computer requesting the web page, and post the code to 
prove you did it in php. Because I say you can't do it!

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#3849

Denis McMahon wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:17:48 -0500, Doug Miller wrote:
>> On 11/21/2011 11:43 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>>> Denis McMahon wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:
>>>>> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
>>>>> this in PHP?
>>>> […]
>>> It is neither irrelevant nor impossible to obtain that information
>>> using PHP.  You would know that if you knew that MAC addresses do not
>>> require Ethernet.
> […]
> Actually, I would love to see TPEL code a web page that displayed the MAC
> address of any computer that requested it. However, it's impossible for
> him to do it!

"Any computer" and "web page" are ideas of yours that have nothing to do 
with the original question.

> He does not have the ability to code such a page.

Nobody has, but only because you have raised the bar.  A common fallacy, but 
not an unexpected one coming from you.

> psst Thomas, prove me wrong, code a web page that displays the MAC
> address of the computer requesting the web page, and post the code to
> prove you did it in php. Because I say you can't do it!

Contrary to what you apparently imagine in your little idiot replacement of 
a brain, I do not care to satisfy your every whim just to prove that you are 
wrong.  Hint: arp.


PointedEars
-- 
Danny Goodman's books are out of date and teach practices that are
positively harmful for cross-browser scripting.
  -- Richard Cornford, cljs, <cife6q$253$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk> (2004)

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#3851

On 11/21/2011 7:20 PM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> Denis McMahon wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> Contrary to what you apparently imagine in your little idiot replacement of
> a brain, I do not care to satisfy your every whim just to prove that you are
> wrong.  Hint: arp.
>
>
> PointedEars

IOW, you have no idea how to do it.  But you said it could be done. 
That's typical - all mouth and no brains.g

It's not your ears that are pointed!  But it does reside on top of your 
neck.

-- 
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

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#3852

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> Denis McMahon wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:17:48 -0500, Doug Miller wrote:
>>> On 11/21/2011 11:43 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>>>> Denis McMahon wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:
>>>>>> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
>>>>>> this in PHP?
>>>>> […]
>>>> It is neither irrelevant nor impossible to obtain that information
>>>> using PHP.  You would know that if you knew that MAC addresses do not
>>>> require Ethernet.
>> […]
>> Actually, I would love to see TPEL code a web page that displayed the MAC
>> address of any computer that requested it. However, it's impossible for
>> him to do it!
> 
> "Any computer" and "web page" are ideas of yours that have nothing to do 
> with the original question.
> 
>> He does not have the ability to code such a page.
> 
> Nobody has, but only because you have raised the bar.  A common fallacy, but 
> not an unexpected one coming from you.
> 
>> psst Thomas, prove me wrong, code a web page that displays the MAC
>> address of the computer requesting the web page, and post the code to
>> prove you did it in php. Because I say you can't do it!
> 
> Contrary to what you apparently imagine in your little idiot replacement of 
> a brain, I do not care to satisfy your every whim just to prove that you are 
> wrong.  Hint: arp.
> 
> 
which will reveal ONLY the nodes on the LOCAL directly connected 
network. In the case of many hosted servers, that will be an upstream 
router ONLY

Once past a router, the MAC dress is lost.

Hint: that's why we don't run the internet using MAC addresses for wide 
area routing.
.


> PointedEars

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#3864

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>> Denis McMahon wrote:
>>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:17:48 -0500, Doug Miller wrote:
>>>> On 11/21/2011 11:43 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>>>>> Denis McMahon wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:15:12 -0800, rrvasanth wrote:
>>>>>>> I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
>>>>>>> this in PHP?
>>>>>> […]
>>>>> It is neither irrelevant nor impossible to obtain that information
>>>>> using PHP.  You would know that if you knew that MAC addresses do not
>>>>> require Ethernet.
>>> […]
>>> Actually, I would love to see TPEL code a web page that displayed the
>>> MAC address of any computer that requested it. However, it's impossible
>>> for him to do it!
>> 
>> "Any computer" and "web page" are ideas of yours that have nothing to do
>> with the original question.
>> 
>>> He does not have the ability to code such a page.
>> 
>> Nobody has, but only because you have raised the bar.  A common fallacy,
>> but not an unexpected one coming from you.
>> […]
>> Hint: arp.
>
> which will reveal ONLY the nodes on the LOCAL directly connected
> network. In the case of many hosted servers, that will be an upstream
> router ONLY
> 
> Once past a router, the MAC dress is lost.
> 
> Hint: that's why we don't run the internet using MAC addresses for wide
> area routing.
> .

It is good to see that at least one person got the meaning of my posting.
There is hope for you yet.


PointedEars
-- 
Prototype.js was written by people who don't know javascript for people
who don't know javascript. People who don't know javascript are not
the best source of advice on designing systems that use javascript.
  -- Richard Cornford, cljs, <f806at$ail$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>

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#3850

On 2011-11-21 11:15:12 +0000, rrvasanth said:

> Dear friends...
> 
>  I need to know the MAC address of the connect clients, how can I do
> this in PHP?
> 
> Thanks
> Vasanth

30 seconds on Google turned up this:
http://forums.devarticles.com/general-programming-help-4/how-can-i-find-out-the-user-mac-address-1846.html 


Be aware, the connecting client's MAC (Ethernet) address will only be 
available *IF* that client is on the same broadcast domain as your 
PHP/Web server.  If they are on a different broadcast domain, you get 
nothing.

Broadcast domain is best thought of as LAN/VLAN.  In short, the moment 
the packet pops up to layer 3 (ie, router/layer 3 switch) between 
server and client, you're boned.

Suggest you get a good book on the OSI model and read up on Ethernet, 
IP and the layer 4 family (UDP/TCP/etc).
-- 
James

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
                -- Publilius Syrus

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