Knowing your MAC address is essential for registering to use the Internet in The University of Manchester and other halls served by Hornet. Read this page carefully.

A ‘MAC’ or ‘Physical’ address is a unique identifying address for your computer which needs to be registered to allow your computer to access the network. The address is a 12 character sequence of numbers (0-9) and letters (just using the letters A to F) which uniquely identifies the card. It is sometimes written on the card.

To be able to find your MAC address you must have correctly installed a network card and setup TCP/IP protocols for it.

Note: any Adapter Address starting 44-45-53-54… is not a correct address. If the Adapter Address starts with these numbers, select another device from the drop-down list

Apple Macintosh

Modern Macs have an Ethernet network adapter built-in. In some cases they have the MAC Address printed on the bottom of the case. If not, you can obtain this address from the network configuration software that you use to configure your Mac. When referring to network or Ethernet adapters, MAC stands for Media Access Control, and isn’t related to the Mac as in Apple Mac!

Finding Your MAC Address in Apple Mac OS X 10.5 Snow Leopard

1. Open the Apple Menu from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click ‘System Preferences’.

2. In the System Preferences pane, click ‘Network’. It is in the third category entitled ‘Internet and Wireless’.

3. In the Networking pane, select ‘Ethernet’ from the list on the left handside. It is the one with the <…> symbol next to it. The click ‘Advanced..’

4. From the row of tabs, select the end one, called ‘Ethernet’. In this new section is a list of details. Your MAC address is the number titled ‘Ethernet ID’.

Finding Your MAC Address in Apple Mac OS X 10.0

The first stage is to find your Hardware Address. All necessary software is part of the Mac OS X default installation. You should not need to make additional installs.
To find your hardware address:

Select the Apple Menu, choose the System Preferences option, and the Network control panel.

Make sure Built-in Ethernet is selected in the Configure: field.

Your Ethernet Address is listed in this window.

Finding Your MAC Address on Mac OS 8 & 9

Start up the “TCP/IP” control panel (Found within the Control Panels item revealed by clicking on the apple in the top left corner).

Ensure that the pull-down menu to the right of the “Connect via” has your Ethernet card selected (This is usually “Built-in Ethernet”).

Select `Get Info` item from the `File` menu and another info pane will appear.

Your MAC address is the “Hardware Address” and is of the form ##:##:##:##:##:##. You need to know this to register your computer for network access.

The TCP/IP details required (e.g. IP address, subnet mask) will now automatically be assigned to your Mac from a network (DHCP) server. You are now configured to use your Halls network. You now need to setup your Internet Browser Software.

Windows 7

You need to open the command prompt application. From the start menu, enter Cmd in the search window. The Command Prompt Application will appear in the Results Pane. Double click it to launch the application.

Type in the command line “ipconfig /all” and press enter.

The MAC address is the physical address that is shown under the Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection header. Note that some computers may have more than one physical address – make sure you have given the one for your Local Area Connection.

Windows Vista

You need to open the command prompt application. From the start menu, enter Cmd in the search window. The Command Prompt Application will appear in the Results Pane. Double click it to launch the application.

Type in the command line “ipconfig /all” and press enter.

The MAC address is the physical address that is shown under the Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection header. Note that some computers may have more than one physical address – make sure you have given the one for your Local Area Connection.

Windows NT/2000/XP

For computers running these more recent versions of Windows, this information can be obtained by opening the command prompt (MS DOS) application. This application is usually found under the “accessories” program folder accessible from the start menu. Type in the command line “ipconfig /all” and press enter.

The MAC address is the physical address that is shown under the Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection header.

Note that some computers may have more than one physical address – make sure you have given the one for your Local Area Connection.

Windows 95/98/Me!

If the card has already been installed, you can find the address by running the Windows IP Configuration program from the “Run” command on the Start menu by typing “winipcfg” and pressing enter.

You should see a Window similar to the image below. If you are using Windows 95 and get an error message at this point, then you may have to install TCP/IP first.

If necessary, click on the drop-down arrow to select your network card. Depending on what other network adapters are installed, there may be several items listed. You need to find your network adapter – not a dial-up adapter, PPP adapter, VPN adapter or AOL adapter. The network adapter may be described as a NDIS adapter in some versions of Windows. Once you’ve selected the correct adapter, the MAC address is given as the Adapter Address.