Wired Networking

The wired network generally offers better performance and reliability than the various wireless networks, and so it is recommended that it be used where possible. Before a machine can make full use of the wired network, its MAC address must be registered by PPE IT support. The MAC address comprises six pairs of characters, usually separated by a colon or hyphen (e.g. 01:23:45:67:89:AB or 01-23-45-67-89-AB), and is also known as a 'hardware address' or 'physical address'.

Linux and Mac OS X users can obtain their computer's MAC address by using the ifconfig command. The output will vary according to the operating system version; for example, under Scientific Linux 6 you are looking for a value labelled HWaddr:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:23:AE:94:B1:1E

Under CentOS 7, the item of interest is labelled ether:

ether 44:a8:42:0a:8e:06  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)

On Windows, the equivalent command is ipconfig which may be run from a command prompt (Start | Run... or Windows + R, then enter cmd). The MAC address is labelled Physical Address:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : physics.gla.ac.uk
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Ethernet Connection I218-LM
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 34-E6-D7-01-4C-55
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Your machine may have multiple MAC addresses (one for each wired Ethernet port, one for the wireless adapter, one for Bluetooth, etc.), in which case it is important to identify the correct one. If you are unsure which address is which, please ask for advice or send a copy of the complete output to PPE IT support.