How do I get a hold of a previously connected PC's name?

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Madbones
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25 Aug 2012, 5:22 pm

Hey!
I am currently on holiday and I suspect that one of our neighbours has connected to my shared network (Its shared by my Macbook Pro) as I forgot to protect it. Is their a terminal command to find out who has connected to the shared connection? Thanks!
Its mobile broadband by the way!


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StuartN
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27 Aug 2012, 1:18 pm

Madbones wrote:
Is their a terminal command to find out who has connected to the shared connection? Thanks!


It might not be possible to see who has connected in the past, because that data would need to have been cached. It would also need to pass through the host that is queried. The command arp should list all the current or recently connected network neighbours connecting to your own computer, but not those connecting to the shared host.

The shared connection is not seen directly by your computer (unless you log packet traffic using WireShark or similar), so you need to check your router's admin pages. They are at an address like 192.168.1.1 (the last two numbers often vary by brand and model), for which you will need login and password. Google the model number for the default IP and login details - "admin" and "1234" were common in-the-box defaults until a few years ago.

A typical Netgear router offers an ARP/RARP table, a DHCP list (machines allocated an IP by the router) and a wireless client list. The unique value you need to check is the MAC, which should be your own devices - note that some devices have more than one MAC, e.g. wireless and wired.

You can usually set ban lists or accepted device lists to control wireless access.