How to find a Mac in my local network

1

I have a Mac and a PC in local network. Unfortunately the Mac does not have a keyboard and the IP is given dynamically by a router I don't have access to.

How do I connect my VNC/Synergy Client to this Mac or how do I get its IP?

Not an option is to place another keyboard on the table or hack into the router. Currently I run a portscan over the whole subnet and try to identify the Mac by its open ports – but there are other Macs in the network so it's a guessing game.

Nice to have would be a kind of local DynDNS service hosted by the Mac or something.

PiTheNumber

Posted 2012-11-05T08:06:47.763

Reputation: 248

It sounds like you are attempting something that is impossible. The Mac you want to identify is in no way different from the other Macs, so how can you possibly identify it? (Maybe there's a sticker on it with its Ethernet MAC address?) – David Schwartz – 2012-11-05T08:10:04.540

ifconfig gives me the MAC address and I probably could convert that into an IP somehow. Would be an improvement. But I was looking for something more automatically. Like add the mac to my dns server list and run some cool script on the mac that imitates a small dns server, or something like that. – PiTheNumber – 2012-11-05T08:19:03.827

Oh, you know its hardware address? Then, after you run the portscan, check your ARP table. The IP address will be in there. – David Schwartz – 2012-11-05T08:20:39.233

Answers

2

If the mac is named 'MyMac', then you can normally access it by connecting to 'MyMac.local'.

In order for a PC to resolve this dns name it, you may need to install Bonjour Print Services for Windows. See also this post.

Unfortunately, by default, Macs have a tendency to have spaces and apostrophes in the names - something like 'John Doe's MacBook Pro'. iOS converts this to a dns name. Look in System Settings > Share, at the top below the computers name. Here you can also change it.

Pete

Posted 2012-11-05T08:06:47.763

Reputation: 370

That sounds great! I changed the name and now I can ping dev-imac.local from the mac but still not from the pc. Maybe I need to restart is mac or something. – PiTheNumber – 2012-11-05T08:35:22.230

2

I found this question on the topic: http://superuser.com/questions/270925/access-a-mac-via-hostname-local-from-a-windows-pc After installing Bonjour Print Services for Windows it worked. Thanks a lot!

– PiTheNumber – 2012-11-05T08:51:38.087

I didn't know about the Bonjour part. I added that to the answer, making it easier for others with the same problem to see all the required steps. – Pete – 2012-11-05T19:01:59.400

Asked: 2012-11-05T08:06:47.763

Viewed: 144 times

Active: 2013-01-03T17:51:55.130