breakfastcereal

Hello,
I have to get the wireless MAC address from a large number of laptops, so I am trying to create a script I can run to grab the wireless MAC address and drop it onto a text file in a flash drive. Right now my goal is to boot from DSL from USB to keep it as simple as possible, but if you guys have any other suggestions, I can easily go a different route.

After booting to DSL from a USB drive installed via this method. I can go to the system specs in the control panel and see that the system recognizes the wireless cards, and correctly names it, but it does not set it up to the network. ifconfig only returns eth0 and lo, no wlan0.

I'm not interested in getting the wireless working correctly, as some laptops may differ in hardware. I'm just trying to get it to return the wireless MAC, but I don't know if that's possible without going through the configuration step.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

RobinVossen

For the Wifi cards its most of the time not ifconifg, but iwconfig.

Else if you want the MAC you can take the card out of the Laptop and hope you see the Sticker. ELSE you can always take the ROM off and Reverce it
But I'd try iwconfig first.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Robin

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breakfastcereal

Ah, I'd forgotten about iwconfig as it's been some time since my last linux adventure. I'll give that a try.

I'd prefer not to get the MAC physically considering the large numbers I'm dealing with. What exactly do you mean by get it off the ROM?

waterhead

Iwconfig only shows the MAC address of an access point. If config may only show cards that have been configured, but have you tried it with the -a option?
There is one problem that I can forsee in using Damn Small Linux. It uses the old 2.4 kernel, not the 2.6 kernel. Many of the wireless drivers are in the latest version of the 2.6 kernel, so you may want to use something else. For a distro with good wireless, I would recommend Linux Mint. It comes as a Live CD.

Edit: As I mentioned, you may need to configure the cards first. I would boot the LiveCD with a wired internet connection present. This way you can easily install any missing components. If you install the Live CD to a USB stick, then it will save it. After a few times, most of the cards will work automatically.

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Paul

Please do not PM me with requests for help. I will not reply.