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ResNet Home » Help Guides » Hardware Address

Finding Your Network Adapter Address


Your computer's Network Adapter Address must be registered in order to receive network access. The Adapter Address is a unique number associated with your computer's network adapter. It is also called a Physical Address, Hardware Address, Ethernet ID or MAC on various systems. Follow the appropriate instructions for your Operation System to locate your Adapter Address.

Choose Your Operating System

Windows Vista

  1. Click the Start circle at the bottom left of your screen and right click the network button.
  2. Press the properties button and wait for the Network and Sharing Center screen to appear.
  3. To the right of the words Local Area Connection there will be a link titled View Status. Click it.
  4. Press the Details button located in the top half of the box.
    In the box that appears, your computer's physical address is the third field in the list (highlighted in blue in the screenshot).
    This series of numbers and letters will be twelve characters in length and will be unique to your computer.

Windows 2000/XP

  1. Click Start » Run » type: cmd » click OK
  2. In the black window, type: ipconfig /all
  3. Write down the twelve-digit Physical Address, as show below (yours will be different).
  4. If you have wireless be sure the address is from the wired adapter not the wireless adapter. Scroll up or down to find the Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection.
  5. If the Physical Address starts with 44-45, this is the modem's address. Scroll up or down to find Ethernet adapter.

Windows 95/98/ME

  1. Click Start » Run » type: winipcfg » click OK
  2. Write down the twelve-digit Adapter Address, as show below (yours will be different).
    Note: You may need to select your network adapter from the drop down list. If the Adapter Address starts with 44-45, this is the modem's address. Select your network adapter.

Apple OS X

  1. Click the Apple (upper left corner) » select System Preferences
  2. Select the Network control panel »
       OS 10 - 10.2 - Click the TCP/IP tab
       OS 10.3 - 10.4 - Set Show to Built-in Ethernet » click the Ethernet tab
  3. Write down the twelve-digit Ethernet Address or Ethernet ID.

Apple OS 9
  1. Click the Apple (upper left corner) » Control Panels » TCP/IP
  2. Set Connect Vi to Ethernet
  3. Set Configure to Using DHCP Server
  4. Select the File menu » Get Info
  5. Write down your Adapter Address which is the twelve-digit string.
  6. Click the Ok button and then close the control panel

Linux

Not all Linux distributions are the same but most will have ifconfig installed.

  1. Open a root terminal window » type ifconfig eth0
    Alternatively just type ifconfig
  2. Write down your HWaddr which is the twelve-digit string.
$ ifconfig eth0
eth0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:5B:AC:74:6B
       inet addr:10.193.240.10  Bcast:128.193.255.255  Mask:255.255.252.0
       UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
       RX packets:25564784 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
       TX packets:19852385 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
       collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
       RX bytes:2414090313 (2.2 GiB)  TX bytes:1957631804 (1.8 GiB)
       Interrupt:7 Base address:0x4000