telnet via mac address

[PEVDaddy]

Does anyone know if it's possible to telnet to a mac address instead of an ip? Or if there is software that will connect to a mac address?

 

[Serbtastic]

Telnet connects via IP address, not MAC address.

 

[PEVDaddy]

ahh, yeah I know that, that is why I asked if there was some other software that would connect via mac. I know that you can find HP jetdirect printers with their software via mac address.

 

[MWM]

PEVDaddy

An IP packet over Ethernet needs BOTH the IP (the logical, network) address AND the MAC (hardware) address. This is a fundemental requirement of IP over Ethernet.

ARP returns the MAC address of an IP address contained in an ARP request.

Of course a LAN subnet (a sequence of IP addresses) can be scanned using a sequence of ARP requests, returning the MAC address for each IP address in the subnet sequence.

As a result, the scanning software has a list of IPs and associated MAC addresses.

MAC addresses are comprised of two parts: the manufacturer's unique ID code (six bytes) plus an additional six bytes to make the total of twelve bytes in the MAC address.

So, I suppose that the HP software simply scans the subnet MAC list it has built and pulls out those with matching HP ID codes.

It can then connect to the HP device using IP over Ethernet since it now knows both the IP address and the MAC address.

Yours,
Mike