Find all devices on wifi network

How to Find What Devices are Connected to Network in Linux

Wireless networks have always been a desirable target for wannabe hackers. Wireless networks are also more vulnerable to hacking than the wired ones.

Forget hacking, do you ever wonder that someone might be leeching off your hard paid wifi network? Maybe a neighbor who once connected to your network and now uses it as his/her own?

It would be nice to check what devices are on your network. This way you can also see if there are some unwanted devices on your network.

So you might end up thinking, “how do I find what devices are connected to my network”?

I’ll show you how to do that in this quick tutorial. Not only it’s a good idea from security point of view, it is also a good little exercise if you have interest in networking.

We will use both, command line and GUI, way for finding out what devices are connected to your local network in Linux. The process is very simple and easy to use even for beginners.

Before you see any of that, let me tell you that your router should also be able to show all the connected devices. Check your gateway ip address and then type it in a browser. This is usually the browser interface for your router. Enter the username and password and you can see all the details and devices connected to the router.

If you don’t remember the router password or you don’t want to go that way, here’s what else you could do.

A. Using Linux command to find devices on the network

Step 1: Install nmap

nmap is one of the most popular network scanning tool in Linux. Use the following command to install nmap in Ubuntu based Linux distributions:

You can easily install it in other Linux distributions as well. It should be in the official software repository.

Step 2: Get IP range of the network

Now we need to know the IP address range of the network. Use the ifconfig command to find the IP address in Linux. Look for wlan0 if you are using wifi or eth0 if you are using Ethernet.

[email protected]:~$ ifconfig
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 70:f1:a1:c2:f2:e9
inet addr:192.168.1.91 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::73f1:a1ef:fec2:f2e8/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2135051 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2013773 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1434994913 (1.4 GB) TX bytes:636207445 (636.2 MB)

The important things are highlighted in bold. As you see my IP is 192.168.1.91 and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 which means that the ip address range on my network varies from 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.255.

You may also use ip a command to know your IP address in Ubuntu and other Linux distributions.

At the same time, I’ll recommend you to read about basic Linux networking commands for more information.

Step 3: Scan to find devices connected to your network

It is advisable to use root privileges while scanning the network for more accurate information. Use the nmap command in the following way:

[email protected]:~$ sudo nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24
Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-09-01 21:59 CEST

Nmap scan report for neufbox (192.168.1.1)
Host is up (0.012s latency).
MAC Address: E0:A1:D5:72:5A:5C (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for takshak-bambi (192.168.1.91)
Host is up.
Nmap scan report for android-95b23f67te05e1c8 (192.168.1.93)
Host is up (0.36s latency).

As you can see that there are three devices connected to my network. The router itself, my laptop and my Galaxy S2.

If you are wondering about why I used 24 in the above command, you should know a little about CIDR notation. It basically means that the scanning will be from 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.255.

B. Using GUI tool to find devices connected to network

When I first wrote this article, there was no GUI tool for this task. Then I came across a new network monitoring tool being developed for elementary OS. I suggested including a periodic device scan feature in this tool and the developer readily agreed.

So, now we have a GUI tool that does this task. It’s called Nutty (last updated in 2019). Just install this app and run it. It will periodically scan for new devices on the network and will notify you if there is a new device.

This application is only available for elementary OS, Ubuntu and hopefully, other Ubuntu based Linux distributions. You can find installation instructions on this detailed article on Nutty.

Oh, you can also log in to your router and see the devices connected to your devices. I let you figure the best way to find devices connected to your network.

Источник

How to See Who Is Connected to Your Wireless Network

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Travis Boylls. Travis Boylls is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Travis has experience writing technology-related articles, providing software customer service, and in graphic design. He specializes in Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux platforms. He studied graphic design at Pikes Peak Community College.

The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article’s instructions and verified that they work.

This article has been viewed 905,536 times.

Do you suspect that someone is using your Wi-Fi? There are several ways to find out which devices are connected to your wireless network, and they are all simple no matter how technical you are. This wikiHow guide will show you easy ways to see all computers, phones, printers, and other devices connected to your wireless network.

Using Your Wireless Router

Open a browser. You can use a web browser to log in to the web interface for your wireless router. You can use the web interface to set up and configure your wireless network and check who is connected to your wireless router.

• Common router IP addresses include 192.168.1.1, and 10.0.0.1.
• You can find your router’s IP address using the Command Prompt on Windows. Open the Start menu and type CMD to display the Command Prompt. Click it to open it. Then type ipconfig /all and press ↵ Enter . Look for the IP address to the right of «Default Gateway»

• If you notice any devices that don’t belong, be sure to change your Wi-Fi password. Be sure to use WPA2-PSK encryption if it is available. This will force all connected devices to re-enter the new password to reconnect.

Using Command Prompt

• On Mac, you can do this in the terminal. Click the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner and type terminal in the search bar and then click the terminal.

• Every device that connects to the internet has a unique MAC address. Generally, you can find the MAC address for a device in the Settings menu under the Network or Internet Settings, or the about device info. You can find the MAC address for Windows, Mac, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy.

Using Wireless Network Watcher (Windows Only)

Scroll down and click Download Wireless Network Watcher with full install . It’s the second link below «Feedback» on the page.

Click the install file and follow the instructions. By default, your downloaded files can be found in your Downloads folder. Click the file that says «wnetwatcher_setup.exe». This opens the Wireless Network Watcher installer. Follow the on-screen instructions to finish the installation. Wireless Network Watcher will open when it finishes installing.

• Use the «Device Name» column to see the name of each device connected to the network and the router it’s connected to.

Click the ‘Play’ triangle icon. It’s in the upper-left corner of Wireless Network Watcher. This rescans your network and displays a list of connected devices.

Community Q&A

You could download your router’s management app and then view the connected devices list on your phone. Check your router’s setup guide to see which app you need to download.

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They will show up on the hotspot’s device list. You may have to log into it, or if it is on your phone, it should be displayed in your phone’s menu.

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It’s possible that it is a device that you don’t remember. But it’s also possible that you have a network intruder. I would recommend changing your Wi-Fi password (make sure to use WPA2), and then reconnecting all of your devices.

Thanks! We’re glad this was helpful.
Thank you for your feedback.
As a small thank you, we’d like to offer you a $30 gift card (valid at GoNift.com). Use it to try out great new products and services nationwide without paying full price—wine, food delivery, clothing and more. Enjoy! Claim Your Gift If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

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