Why does it only show MAC addresses and not IP addresses
2 posts · Closed
Hi!
I'm wondering why Switch Port Mapper does not show IP addresses of devices connected to ports, only MAC addresses, while Network Scanner is able to resolve MAC addresses to IP addresses? And why doesn't it resolve hostnames from the DNS?
These tools are designed to help investigate the network, but it seems a bit backwards that I have to scan using Network Scanner to map MAC addresses to IP addresses, then sort by MAC address in Switch Port Mapper and look for the corresponding MAC address manually...
Best regards,
Thomas
It is not really possible to resolve a MAC address to an IP address; only the reverse - an IP address can be resolved to a MAC address.
This can be done by scanning the entire network range to build a map of "IP address = MAC address" and then perform a reverse lookup. That's something Switch Port Mapper is supposed to do, but a few conditions must be met:
- In Switch Port Mapper settings on the Discovery tab the scanning must be enabled.
- When running the mapping, leave the router field blank. If there is information obtained from the router, the scanning will not run.
- Once initial mapping is done and MAC addresses are displayed, there should be a pop-up window asking what network range to scan. It needs to be within the current subnet as MAC addresses cannot reliably be resolved behind routers.
Lastly it doesn't resolve host names, because it doesn't have IP addresses.