How To Find Mac OSX Devices on the Network

andrewbbq
New Contributor

Can anyone recommend a scanning tool or method to find and inventory all and "missing" Mac OSX devices on the network? I am only concerned w/ macbooks and iMacs.

1 REPLY 1

joshuasee
Contributor III

Some ideas:

  • Apple Remote Desktop includes a network scanner that uses Bonjour or network ranges to add devices. It will detect macOS computers even if it doesn't have login credentials for them.
  • From known devices within the same subnet/VLAN you could run arp -a to find unknown devices, winnowing it down by looking for Apple assigned OUs (the first six characters of the MAC address), and then eliminating known devices.
  • If the Macs are bound to a directory server, compare a list of Apple objects on that server to known lists of Macs.