ethernet bia vs wireless radio bia

[wcdaley]

I was hoping to be able to identify which physical AP I am connected to in my school. I have a list of MAC address from the AP but they don't match up with any of addresses the WirelessMon software found. I'm told the difference is BIA of the Ethernet vs Wireless Radio. Is there a way to match the physical number on the AP to what the software finds?

[David (PassMark)]

BIA, Burned-In Address, is just another name for MAC address. So you seem to be blaming the MAC for not being able to identify the MAC address. Which doesn't make much sense?

[wcdaley]

Thanks for answering.
And I'm trying to understand it myself.
I copied the written MAC address off the back of the APs at our school and then ran WirelessMon Pro. It found the AP but none of the MAC addresses it indicated matched with what was written on the back of the AP. I asked the Department about this and they said:
The MAC address on the back of the AP is the Ethernet BIA…e.g.
FastEthernet0 is up, line protocol is up
Hardware is PowerPCElvis Ethernet, address is 0017.0ef1.8a60 (bia 0017.0ef1.8a60)
When you are connected via the wireless using WirelessMon…etc you are seeing the Wireless Radio’s BIA….e.g.
Dot11Radio0 is up, line protocol is up
Hardware is 802.11G Radio, address is 0016.9cb9.3ec0 (bia 0016.9cb9.3ec0)
They also said they knew of no easy way to match the Ethernet BIA to the Wireless Radio's BIA.
We are about to at least double the number of APs in the school and I was hoping to be able to turn on WirelessMon on my laptop, and be able to tell the stength of the surrounding APs.
But WirelessMon comes up with a different MAC than what is written on the back of the AP.
Does this make any more sense?

I was also hoping (and this may be a separate thread) to be able to idenfiy the IP of the AP. The IP tab only show the IP of my wireless card.

[David (PassMark)]

While I haven't looked into the matter in detail I would assume that most (if not all) access points have 2 MAC's. One for the Wireless portion of the network and one for the Ethernet portion.

So I think the solution is to just write 2 different numbers on the back of the AP. You should be able to work out which is which either by looking at signal strength, or turning some off and on for a few seconds. (or a directional antenna)

[wcdaley]

You're right. As I removed each AP to confirm the ethernet BIA, I watched the signal disappear from the software contected to the Wireless Radio BIA. It took less time than I thought -once I understood what I was looking for and got in the groove.
Thanks.