Is it possible to obtain MAC address from remote machine?

[Jay]

Hi there,

I was wondering if using Socket.IO it is possible to obtain the MAC
address of the remote server, and ideally the ARP details for the
Default gateway also?

Cheers,
Jay

[Sanford Whiteman]

> I was wondering if using Socket.IO it is possible to obtain the MAC
> address of the remote server, and ideally the ARP details for the
> Default gateway also?

That's a pretty strange question (what's your goal here?).

Certainly you can have the remote server tell you interesting MAC
address(es) over Socket.IO if you so desire. :)

But no, you won't have any magic access to such low-level information,
let alone be able to leak it outside of the local network if your app
isn't deliberately configured to broadcast it. You'll have to use the
traditional methods of ARP/RARP and so on, which naturally will not
penetrate past the first hop anyway. Routing and routing information
protocols are secure for obvious reasons (OSPF inject default
anyone?).

What is it that HTTP isn't doing for you that you think WebSockets
will get around?

-- S.

[Jay]

I have a troubleshooter www.adslgeek.com/troubleshooter where I was
hoping to simply and ideally remotely scan for all possible details to
assist the end customer to identify their equipment and their
connection issues.

When I first saw Socket.IO I was quite stoked as it looks to do a lot
of the key stuff that I really want access to (but I will have bit of
a learning curve to get my socket coding to do all the stuff I was
hoping for).

The main areas that I am hoping to be able to run in the remote
browser is:
- Packet loss
- Ping (to a couple of different hosts)
- Jitter
From that I could then work out the network issues - any help with
some existing simple scripts that might help cover that off, would be
REALLY appreciated! :-)

The reason I was after the MAC address of the remote DG would usually
tell me the Manufacturer of the DSL router and from this possibly
detect security or known stability / faults with that device.

I have since just had to go for a VB program which is installed and
runs on the far machine thus getting these metrics from the customers
machine (but it really would have been so much cooler to have an in-
browser way of getting all that sort of data from a simplicity
perspective).

http://www.adslgeek.com/dslforum/index.php?topic=2026

Cheers, and thanks heaps for saving me time trying to work out if it
was able to happen! :-)

Cheers
Jay Best / ADSLgeek

[Łukasz Michalski]

W dniu 2011-12-31 11:07, Jay pisze:

>
> The main areas that I am hoping to be able to run in the remote
> browser is:
> - Packet loss
> - Ping (to a couple of different hosts)
> - Jitter
> From that I could then work out the network issues - any help with
> some existing simple scripts that might help cover that off, would be
> REALLY appreciated! :-)
>
> The reason I was after the MAC address of the remote DG would usually
> tell me the Manufacturer of the DSL router and from this possibly
> detect security or known stability / faults with that device.
>

You do not have access to TCP connection when using socket.io. Socket.io
is communication protocol in layer 7, over HTTP, so you can't use socket
api or do ICMP requests. Moreover javascript engine does not have access
to local filesystem, OS configuration or hardware where browser runs for
security reasons.

Maybe you can make your VB program as Active-X component or write it as
Java plugin?

Regards,
Łukasz