Hi! Tomorrow evening I will be helping my 78 year old Dad set up a wireless router. He purchased a Belkin Wireless G router F5D7230-4. We would like to set up MAC address filter. It seems fairly straightforward to do this once we find the MAC address. Where does one find the MAC address when using OS 9? I did STF but didn't find any information to help me. Thanks for any constructive help you can give us. Dave

what machine?

You can always look at the label for the address on the board. That's one way.

Also, the router should tell you in DHCP what is connected to it, doesn't it??

System Profiler
(About This Mac -> More Info)

Network Device(s). Should show the MAC address for the Ethernet interface or AirPort interface.

man... the things you forget when you don't launch certain things for a long time.

Funny.... I could tell you in Winduds off the top of my head... for the past 8 years.

Thanks for the help! TheCaber, that sounds very similar to how I would find that information under OS X. Does it work the same way under OS 9? Thanks again for the help! I hope you have a great evening! Dave



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2006 11:27PM by davec.

I just checked on my FrankenMac here at home...there doesn't appear to be a "more info" option under OS 9. There is IP address, name server address under "network overview". I'm not seeing a MAC address under OS 9. Where else should I look? Thanks for your help! Dave

I have very little experience with networks and routers. I am hoping the Belkin set-up Wizard will be able to help with setting up MAC address filtering, but I just wanted to be prepared. Any other helpful advice is appreciated. Thanks! Dave

does he really need it enabled?

who would/could steal his signal?

and OS 9? no viruses, spam, etc, etc for it

try tabbed browsing in mozilla, its fast too

I can't believe you are actually sugesting that he not use an access control. It is completely irresponsible to not lock your network from unauthorized access. What if someone drove by in their van and looked up kiddie porn using his connection? Guess who's door they would come knocking down? Think about all his financial or personal information that is on his machine. Do you want anyone to be able to drive by and have free reign on his network? I don't think so.

MAC filtering is IMO the easiest and safest way to go for locking down the network. You put your cards MAC in and that is the only one who can get on the wireless. The MAC address, as said before, is probably printed on the card. You may have to crack open the case to see what it is. On my Netgear router when you go to setup the MAC filtering it shows a list of computer names and their mac addresses that are currently connected. Just pick from that list, if your router supports it.

If he is concerned about people eaves dropping on his transmissions, I would also use a WEP key, the stronger the better.

Apple System Profiler (probably under the Apple menu but otherwise in the Applications Folder or do a File menu -> Find) -> System profile tab -> Network Overview triangle -> Appletalk triangle -> Hardware Address. It will be in the form of xx.xx.xx.xx.xx.xx where x is a number or letter. He will need to copy it by hand as you cannot copy and paste info from the Profiler.

And MAC address filtering is a must given his proximity to other networks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2006 05:08AM by Speedy.

I have that same router dave. If you can't locate the MAC address in the System Profiler, go to router's setup page using your browser of choice. In the list on the left hand side, click on DHCP Client List. You should see you dad's computer and MAC address in the list. Copy the MAC address then in the left hand side list click on MAC Address Filtering. Check the box to enable filtering, paste the address in the appropriate window and click add, then click Apply Changes and you should be good to go.

Speedy, Golfer and C-ris, thanks for your support and helpful suggestions! They are very much appreciated! We attempted to use the automated Belkin set-up Wizard. And while all of the connections appear to be good (green lights on cable modem, power, LAN to ethernet connected iMac, and internet) the "Wizard" failed both attempts to complete the connection check and configurations. I'm not sure that the "Wizard" was all that smart- I wonder if it is a Belkin software issue. We will be taking a look at it again tomorrow or Monday. Thanks again for all of the helpful advice! I hope you have a great weekend! Dave

i've found it best to initially turn MAC filtering off in the router. this lets your router pick up all available addresses. you can then let your router know which addresses are OK and then turn MAC filtering on. good luck.