Comments on: MAC Address Identifies a Remote Server is a VMware VM

By: egcagrac0

egcagrac0 — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:00:50 +0000

When I tried that on a known VM, I got the hardware MAC of the host machine, not the emulated MAC of the VM.

By: ShadyCraig

ShadyCraig — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:32:56 +0000

You can get the mac of a remote server in linux using arping:

[root@localhost ~]# arping whatever.example.com -c 1
ARPING 192.168.4.157 from 192.168.3.13 eth0
Unicast reply from 192.168.4.157 [00:0C:29:58:DB:85] 1.489ms
Sent 1 probes (1 broadcast(s))
Received 1 response(s)

By: ShadyCraig

ShadyCraig — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:32:56 +0000

By: rbrambley

rbrambley — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:49:40 +0000

Maish, Omar, Andy, Matt,

Thanks for the alternative ideas and methods of identifying VMs!

By: aslezak

aslezak — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:51:53 +0000

If you want to know the exact machine type based upon mac address scans, you can use the newly released fing command-line utility (from over-look.com) or simply do an nmap scan. Fing (similar to the name ping, so you don't forget it) is super easy to install and execute. Try it out. I think it's better than the solution you mentioned

Note: I signed up for disqus because i'd like to be able to track this comment thread (as well as others). Please delete my other “unregistered” comment. Sorry for the “noise” generated by this “duplicate” comment, and I am an avid reader of your blog!

By: Matt Smith

Matt Smith — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:02:55 +0000

Using PSInfo can be a good way to identify a virtual machine as the Video driver should come up as a VMWARE SVGA.

By: Andy Slezak

Andy Slezak — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:45:11 +0000

If you want to know the exact machine type based upon mac address scans, you can use the newly released fing command-line utility (from over-look.com) or simply do an nmap scan. Fing is super easy to install and execute. Try it out. I think it's better than the solution you mentioned

By: Omar Torres

Omar Torres — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:32:02 +0000

another method is to use the services mmc console to connect to the remote "server" and see if vmtools service is running. if it's non windows, then ssh to the vm and run "chkdconfig --list" to see if vmtools service is running as well.

the obvious pitfalls on this method are:

a. the administrator failed to install vmtools (a whole different bag of worms to deal with)

b. you don't have admin/root access to the vm in question...

I think at the moment, the getmac method is the most foolproof method. good find guys.

-o