Who is on my Airport Network?

I leave my Airport network open with no passwords, so everyone can easily use it.
How can I see who is logged on, and is it possible to monitor what they are looking up?
All I can find is the Airport Utility Logs page, which just shows a bunch of numbers and the start time...
Is there a program available to show me what's happening on my Airport network?
Thanks,
ShawnR

There may be other methods but Airport Utility's log really is a very good way to find out who (or what) is on your network. Look for the log entries saying "associated with station xx:xx:xx..." Those are MAC (media access code) addresses which correspond to the devices on the network, and are unique as fingerprints.
You should keep a post-it note somewhere with the MAC addresses of all your networked computers and other devices. They can usually be found on a printed label somewhere stuck on the outside of its enclosure. If one appears your log that you can't account for, there's someone piggybacking on your network.
There is no quick way I can think of to determine who or what that someone is doing though...

Similar Messages

How can I tell who is connected to my network?

Is there a quick way to see what other computers are connected via wireless to my Airport network? I don't want to access those computers, I just want to see who's connected. Thanks.

Is there a quick way to see what other computers are connected via wireless to my Airport network?
Yes. You can use the AirPort Utility to determine both wireless and DHCP clients connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS).
AirPort Utility > Manual Setup > Advanced > Logging & SNMP > Logs and Statistics > Wireless Clients or DHCP Clients

Who is on my wireless network? How do I tell?

Is there a way to tell who is on my wireless network? I have an Extreme Base Station and I want to know if there is a way to tell if my neighbors are on my network or not.

You can see the different machines that are connected to your base station using AirPort Utility, but you may not be able to tell who those machines belong to. You'd be better of putting security on your network by encrypting it with WPA. This will simply lock any offenders out. See the Wireless Security setting in the Wireless tab in AirPort Utility.

Who is accessing my airport

I want to be able to see who is accessing my wireless network. Is there any way to do this given I'm running Airport Express 7.6.3? I'm running OSX 10.7.5 on my Macbook pro. THere was a link posted in a forum dated 2006 for this, but the page in question no longer exists.
-Hugh

is there any way to bump clients off the Wifi without having to bring down the entire thing?
Not easily. If you identified a MAC Address that you did not want to be on the network, I suppose that you could set up Timed Access to never allow that particular MAC Address to connect to your network.
But, you would have to restart the AirPort for the changes to take effect.....temporarily knocking everyone else off for 30 seconds or so.
This would only work for wireless clients, not any Ethernet clients.

There was an error joining the Airport network

Re: error joining the Airport Network
My wife and I bought two new Macbooks at Best Buy on December 28, 2006. On the first day, I set them both up to work with our 2WIRE wireless router, and they both worked flawlessly.
However, on January 27, 2007, my wife started her MacBook, tried to select the wireless router in the Airport drop down menu (like she always has done before with no problem), and received the following error message:
"There was an error joining the Airport network "2WIRE229"
After several unsuccessful attempts to fix this problem by restarting and reconnecting, I did some research on the internet and came across the following discussions from other people who have experienced exactly the same problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3815739

I am having the same problem. I have an access point in my living room and a homework desk in my bedroom. My desk is maybe thirty feet from the access point through one wall. The desk does sit in front of a window. When I try to use my PowerBook at my homework desk I can, intermittently, pick up three access points: mine and two others. The two others are on the same channel as each other, but that should not be interfering with my access point and certainly shouldn't be causing it to disappear from the list all together.
Hoping that my signal just wasn't reaching well enough (the antenna on the AP was not very prominent) I bought a 6dBi antenna for it. My PowerBook has always worked in the living room and certainly works there now. I do get a much stronger signal in my bedroom but I still can't use the laptop on my homework desk.
What doesn't make any sense in all of this is that the wall in my room with the window is the same wall in the living room where there is a large sliding glass door. So, if the interfering signal is coming from outside it should be affecting the living room as well. I am at my wits end on this one.

There was an error joining the Airport network "NameOfTheNetwork"

Hi there
I am French in London for an internship. I took a flat to share with an other girl. My father advised me to take a Mac for my specific utilisation (internet, music, movies...) and Macs are so cool exept for internet in my case. It doesn't work at all. The network of my landlord is hidden. So, I go in "other", I type manually the network name and the WEP password... Always the same message : There was an error joining the Airport network "NameOfTheNetwork". I tried several times with always the unlucky result.
My landlord said that there wasn't this kind of problem with her other flatmates before me...
I am pratically sure that the problem doesn't comme from my Mac because I reached to join an unprotected other network which appear sometimes (but the signal is not enought strong).
Is there an incompatibility between my Mac and the setup Network? And what do I have to to do to fix it?
I visited a lot of forums but :
1-I didn't find any topics on my specific problem
2-There explanations (when the topic is closed to my issue) are not clear and seem not to correspond to my issue.
Is there someone who can help me please? I really need internet!!!!!
Emma

This confirms it is a WEP issue.
You will need to find the HEX key.
One of the problems with WEP is that the actual standard relies on a 10 character HEX key for 40bit WEP and a 26 character HEX key for 128bit WEP.
In order to make things easier for people, vendors use certain algorithms to convert simple alphanumeric passwords (or passphrases) into HEX keys, thus enabling people to use simple memorable WEP password rather than lengthy HEX keys.
The problem is that different vendors use different algorithms to generate the HEX key and therefore a ASCII password on an AEBS will be hashed differently on a Netgear client and vice versa.
One thing is a 13 character 128 bit WEP password will be hashed by all vendors in the same way (if you use 40bit WEP then a 5 character password is required).
Though sometimes not even that works and the HEX key must be used regardless.
AirPort: Joining an encrypted wireless network
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106424
Choosing a password for networks that use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108058

Who is on my AE network?

Is there a way to see who is on my AE network or at least how many users?

Use the Airport Management Tools to find out which clients are connected via their unique MAC address.
Use WPA to stop unauthorised use.

Help - Airport network not working - confused!!

Hello, I wonder if anyone out there can help. I have got a problem with my airport network that doesn't make any sense and I havent seen another post with the same problems.
I have an imac G5 with 10.3.9. I have a wireless network set up, with an airport wireless card and two ax boxes (the second was bought later to boost the signal when we moved the Mac to another room). Initially it set up fine and worked for about 8-9 months. Then I noticed the second ax started behaving strangely. It would occasionally turn from 'green' to flashing amber for no reason - often after it had been on for a while. Turning it off and on did not change anything. Usually though it would work again the next day after being off all night. This continued to happen randomly until a couple of months later it switched to flashing amber continually.
I thought it had 'lost' the network so I tried using the airport set up assistant to reconnect it. However the set up assistant does not recognise ax number 2 any more, so I am not able to reconnect it. At the moment I am running off a faint signal from ax number 1.
I also tried setting up a completely new network from scratch. Again the new network is fine from the base ax bx but ax number 2 is still not recognised by my mac.
I also have a wireless printer connected to the network which does not work any more. This is where things became more confusing. The printer needs a boost signal to operate so when my booster ax went wrong the printer would not work. So I moved the printer and mac nearer ax number 1 to ensure it would pick up the network. However it still didn't work. So I attempted to set up the printer as wireless again, thinking it had become 'disconnected' somehow. However during installation you have to select the network to connect to. The computer would not pick up the apple network at all from ax number 1, yet it easily recognises our neighbours network from the flat above us. Strangely when I tried turning on the faulty ax box, the printer set up program picked up the faulty ax and not the original ax. But obviously I can't use the printer from the faulty ax box because it doesnt connect to the rest of the network.
So now I am confused. I am not sure what has gone wrong and what I need to replace. Originally I thought it was the second ax box that had gone wrong. But as the printer software can identify the second ax box I am not sure that this is the problem. Could there be something wrong with the airport card? I have checked that the card is properly connected and there is nothing visibly wrong there.
If anyone can help - please reply as I am going crazy here with things not working and don't know what to do next.
Thanks, Wrenster

Hello Wrenster,
I understand why you are confused, I was too while reading your post. However I have the solution for you. I believe you are a victim of environmental interference. Someone in your neighborhood just moved in with a another network, someone had a baby and is using a baby monitor, or maybe a local ham radio operator just got his license. Who knows!
This is what you need to do. Get all the devices in the same room and preform a hard restart on each one them per http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108044. Remember to preform a hard restart! After performing a hard restart on all three devices check the wireless networks available. You should have 3 ( one main and 2 airport expresses) ( or two depending on how many airports you own, I am not sure from your post). If you don't have the correct amount you may a bum base station and it may need to be replaced. But if you have the correct number of wireless networks ( Apple network XXXXXXX), use the airport admin utility ( inside of the utility folder ) to locate the main base station and configure it.
You will know when you are on the configuration page when you can read Name, Contact and Location.
First change the name to the location of the main base station, ie; it is the den so name should read DEN. leave the contact and location alone. On the bottom half of the page is where you create your network, so under network name change it to your desired network name ie; when others come over to my house I have them select COWSWEAT from the network list.
Second click on the change wireless security and set the security to WEP 128 BIT and make your password. Once you have configured a successful password be sure to click on the lock on the main configuration page ( the one with password under it) to get the HEX password for your PC friends.
Third ( we are almost done ) Select the WDS tab at the top and enable this base station as a main station. Select allow other wireless client on this base station as well. Now on that empty list box below click the plus sign to the right to add other base stations to this WDS network. From here you should be able to select the other 2 base station that we have not configure yet ( but preformed a hard restart on). After you have added them ( be sure the check box for auto configure is selected) they should read in the list that was empty on the WDS page.
Now update this should start the update process and may take 5-10 mins, it should provide a summery pop-up when with each station is done.
( Also you may get a message that there is update for the base station, please preform the updates for the selected base stations)
Now when it is completed check to see how many networks you have available ( it should only be one ). Select the network and confirm that all of your base stations appear under the select a base station in Airport admin utility, then move them back to their homes around the house. Giving them 45 secs to restart they should turn green if not , they could out of range of each other or the environmental interference could be affecting them. So you my need to rearrange them until they all green.
Good Luck,
Cowsweat

My airport network won't accept my password....

Help!! I have a modem-wireless router set-up at my apartment. Recently the interent went out in the complex, so I tried other networks, but when I went back to mine and tried to enter the password, the airport would not recognize it. I know the the password is correct and my roommate who has a PC tried it and it worked fine. Do I have a setting or preference on that is preventing my airport network from accepting the password? Please say someone knows what I'm talking about!!!!!
Thanks,
Lauren

It sounds like your wireless network is using WEP for encryption. If so, the following Apple article should prove helpful. If you're using AirPort software earlier than v2.1, (& trying to connect to a non-AirPort wireless router) you may just need to either add a "$" before a hex key or enclose a ASCII key in quotation marks...depending on which key type you are using.

Advice on set up for a mixed Airport network with guest network.

Hi,
The manuals on the Airport Extreme and Airport Networking are more technical than my knowledge base can follow. I would like advice on how to set up a new network with a mixture of wired and wireless devices and some Windows equipment as well as os x based macs. the following: dsl broadband from Talk Talk to be managed by a Draytek Vigor 120 external modem connected to an Airport Extreme. I want to connect a Nov 2009 iMac (with Mountain Lion installed), Apple TV and xbox by ethernet cable to the 3 ethernet ports on the Extreme, but also to connect wirelessly one Windows 7 laptop, one Macbook Pro (2010) (again running Mountain Lion) and various other wireless devices like an iPad 2, iPhones etcetera, with all devices being part of one network run under one SSID and able to access the internet, and the 3 computers being able to fileshare with each other. On my current Windows created network which I am abandoning for reasons I won't go into here, if more than one of the computers is switched on, I can use any one of the computers to access information in any of the shared folders on the other computers - via Finder in the case of the macs - and I need this going forward. I would also like to create a Guest network as I have a lot of people come to stay who need internet access. To further complicate things, I would also like to add in an Airport Express wirelessly onto the network and link that to a hi-fi to give me the ability to play my iTunes library (situated on my iMac at present) on the hi-fi.
I appreciate that there are similar questions but I have not really found an answer that exactly nails my situation.
Thanks in advance.

It is not really an issue of how many clients can the iMac serve, but more about the volume of traffic you are processing or data the database application needs to serve. We have a Mac hardware that is a good 6 years or more old running OSX Server and supporting 20/30 clients without any problems.
One idea you may like to consider.
Don't run the VPN on the mac, get a router or separate dedicated networking box that provides that purpose. Then it will talk the load of any networking issues and external attacks. It can also provide other networking services for you such a DHCP, firewall, DNS, internet gateway, etc. They cost less next to nothing and are easy to install.
When you need to get something faster, look for a second hand xerve - we use them all the time. They have the advantage of have fast and very reliable discs, also you can raid the disks and hot swap them for backup purposes,
Finally, moving from one machine to another is each with things like carbon copy. But you cannot have the same licence for OSX server running twice, so you will need to install normal OSX on the iMac once you have done the move.
As for can you easily move from a imac to mac pro, sure not to hard to do.

Who is using my airport

is there really no way to find out who is currently using my airport extreme. I know I can get MAC addresses by using the airport utility. But I want to know who is using my airport right now, not who has been using it is the past week.

The wireless clients listed by the airport utility may be connected currently or it may have been connected 6 hours ago.
Not in the Wireless Clients window of the AirPort Utility application that I am using.
Sounds like you may be looking at the DHCP Clients window.
Wireless Clients will display a wireless device that is currently connected, and if the device logs off the wireless, that device will disappear from the Wireless Clients window within a few seconds.
When the device logs back on to the wireless, it appears again within a few seconds in Wireless Clients.
So, I will stand by my statement that Wireless Clients displays clients that are currently connected to the wireless network.
DHCP Clients (which from your description is what you are looking at) will display a client and the time that a new lease was granted or renewed, which could be minutes or hours depending on when that occurred. The device listing under DHCP Clients does not indicate whether the device is currently active on the wireless network or not....only that it has been granted a DHCP lease for the network.
If you are using more than one AirPort and have a device extending the network, the wireless device may be showing up under Wireless Clients on the extending device and not showing up on the "main" router. That is normal. In this case, the wireless device would be a Wireless Client of the "extending" device, but a DHCP Client of the "main" router.
At least, that is the way AirPort Utility and Wireless Clients and DHCP Clients works here. Check the Wireless Clients tab on your version of AirPort Utility to see if it behaves as my verson does.

Finder extremely slow over Airport Network after updating to 10.4.11

Hi, I have a problem with 10.4.11. Since I upgraded, about two weeks ago, I experienced an intolerable slowdown of the Finder over my Airport network. When trying to access folders and files located on my Powerbook (PowerPC G4) from a Mac Mini (also PowerPC G4) over the network the Finder stops, sometimes for minutes before opening a folder or copying a file.
When I tried the reverse, e.g. accessing the desktop Mac Mini from the Powerbook (which still runs 10.4.10) all worked fine, in reasonable time.
Do anybody have a similar problem? How can it be cured?
Thanks for helping.
Piero

I have the exact same issue, and so does my sister, who has an iMac on the same network. Did you ever find a solution?
At this point, it's so annoying that I'm thinking of downgrading to 10.4.10. Does anyone know if this will fix the issue and what the ramifications of downgrading might be? Anyone know where 10.4.10 can be found?

Airport Networking a HD-Dead 700mHz iMac

Greetings:
My penniless home school would like to get Airport working on a donated 700mHz iMac with a dead hard drive by using BootCD. BootCD works perfectly, but I can't get it to Airport network. When I use Go - Connect to Server it always states "Connection Failed/No response from the Server." In Network pane I have a Amber light for "Airport is on but is not connected the a network" and the "Configure" button doesn't pop up the diagnosis panes as usually opens on regular machines. I'm wondering whether I'm missing crucial Network software that wasn't installed on the BootCD and how I can include it on a new BootCD disk, along with copying there the OpenOffice perferences on our Panther eMac (we store and run OpenOffice and its documents on flash drives, but the perfs don't work). Getting Airport working with this machine is very helpful because we just can't afford anymore ethernet cables at this stage. Any suggestions will be most appreciated!
JimG

If only the internal hard disk drive has failed due to wear and age, that could
be replaced with only a moderate amount of tedium, attention to detail, and
some degree of technical skill. The details are very important, though; so as
to not damage otherwise original wires, heat conduits, and other parts inside.
The iMac G4 700MHz built model is different than the later and similar PPC
based G4 iMac computers in specification and internal details; that said, a
few online sources and perhaps if you can locate one, a donated use of the
original Technical repair manual in PDF for the computer model could help.
Online, there are a few sources to read for instructions; sometimes, lacking in
detail when a process or appearance, or internal parts vary between versions.
• mr tote's iMac G4 take-apart (appears to be a 1.25GHz model)
http://www.mrtotes.co.uk/page1/page1.html
• iMac G4 Take-apart for Drive and RAM upgrades: (this site was down last week)
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/imacg4/imacg4takeapart.html
• OWC: search results for 3.5" Internal IDE/ATA (PATA) replacement HDDs:
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/3.5InternalIDE/ATA
A general reference for parts, by number & model/series - is why this link is here:
http://www.mac-pro.com/Mac-Pro-Online-Store/G4-iMac-Parts-and-Accessories
You may be able to find someone who has access to and can share the original
Apple technical Service manual for this early G4 iMac LCD computer, as that is
a good source of additional information on the Display and for troubleshooting.
The ability to repair these when only parts-swap is involved, would also translate
to an ability to replace a clock battery and upgrade internal RAM, and so on.
While some are easier to learn how to repair, others are entirely different...
Good luck & happy computing!

Airport Networking a HD-Dead 700mHz iMac via BootCD

Greetings:
My penniless home school would like to get Airport working on a donated 700mHz iMac with a dead hard drive by using BootCD. BootCD works perfectly, but I can't get it to Airport network. When I use Go - Connect to Server it always states "Connection Failed/No response from the Server." In Network pane I have a Amber light for "Airport is on but is not connected the a network" and the "Configure" button doesn't pop up the diagnosis panes as usually opens on regular machines. I'm wondering whether I'm missing crucial Network software that wasn't installed on the BootCD and how I can include it on a new BootCD disk, along with copying there the OpenOffice perferences on our Panther eMac (we store and run OpenOffice and its documents on flash drives, but the perfs don't work). Getting Airport working with this machine is very helpful because we just can't afford anymore ethernet cables at this stage. Any suggestions will be most appreciated!
JimG

If only the internal hard disk drive has failed due to wear and age, that could
be replaced with only a moderate amount of tedium, attention to detail, and
some degree of technical skill. The details are very important, though; so as
to not damage otherwise original wires, heat conduits, and other parts inside.
The iMac G4 700MHz built model is different than the later and similar PPC
based G4 iMac computers in specification and internal details; that said, a
few online sources and perhaps if you can locate one, a donated use of the
original Technical repair manual in PDF for the computer model could help.
Online, there are a few sources to read for instructions; sometimes, lacking in
detail when a process or appearance, or internal parts vary between versions.
• mr tote's iMac G4 take-apart (appears to be a 1.25GHz model)
http://www.mrtotes.co.uk/page1/page1.html
• iMac G4 Take-apart for Drive and RAM upgrades: (this site was down last week)
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/imacg4/imacg4takeapart.html
• OWC: search results for 3.5" Internal IDE/ATA (PATA) replacement HDDs:
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/3.5InternalIDE/ATA
A general reference for parts, by number & model/series - is why this link is here:
http://www.mac-pro.com/Mac-Pro-Online-Store/G4-iMac-Parts-and-Accessories
You may be able to find someone who has access to and can share the original
Apple technical Service manual for this early G4 iMac LCD computer, as that is
a good source of additional information on the Display and for troubleshooting.
The ability to repair these when only parts-swap is involved, would also translate
to an ability to replace a clock battery and upgrade internal RAM, and so on.
While some are easier to learn how to repair, others are entirely different...
Good luck & happy computing!

Applescript to select specific airport network

hi all,
I'd like to write an applescript to select a specific airport network named 'NETGEAR'
I haven't got much experience with Applescript and I can't get Automator's 'Watch Me Do' to work properly.
What i'd like done is:
-select the airport menu (in the menu bar)
-select the wifi network 'NETGEAR'
using automator and applescript editor, I've got the following scritpt:
on run {input, parameters}
    -- Click the “AirPort Menu Extra” menu bar item.
    delay 1.664016
    set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
    set uiScript to "click menu bar item 6 of menu bar 1 of application process \"SystemUIServer\""
    my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)
    return input
    -- NETGEAR
    delay 0.882737
    set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
    set uiScript to "click menu item \"NETGEAR\" of menu 1 of menu bar item 6 of menu bar 1 of application process \"SystemUIServer\""
    my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)
    return input
end run
however, this returns the dialogue: 'AppleScript Error (null)'. So clearly something isn't right.
I'm sure that whatever mistakes I'm making are pretty obvious to someone who's more familiar with scripting.

I am so sorry to bother you again. I have another question about how to create a script to change Safari downloaded folder.                                                                            Automatically changing Safari's downloads folder
I have searched a script but it seems to have problem. How should i do?
-- Set alternative drive name to use as downloads folder here
set dlFolder to convertHome("/Volumes/Untitled")
tell application "Finder"
     if exists [POSIX file dlFolder] then
          -- Do Nothing and use the folder
     else
          -- set dlFolder to default home directory
          set dlFolder to (POSIX path of (path to home folder as text)) & "Downloads"
     end if
end tell
-- get current path from safari plist
set currentpath to convertHome(do shell script "defaults read com.apple.Safari DownloadsPath")
-- change path only if the current setting does not match the input path (there is something to change)
if (currentpath as text) is not equal to (dlFolder as text) then
     -- if Safari is running, change settings through Safari's preferences
     if appIsRunning("Safari") then
          -- determine the frontmost application to restore when script is done
          set frontApp to path to frontmost application as text
          -- copy the download folder path to the clipboard
          set the clipboard to dlFolder as text
          activate application "Safari"
          tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Safari"
               -- open the preferences or bring to front (window 1)
               keystroke "," using {command down}
               delay 1 -- pauses in window display may result in an error, so we wait a second
               -- Change to the General tab
               click button "General" of tool bar 1 of window 1
               -- Change download location to Other
               tell pop up button "Save downloaded files to:" of group 1 of group 1 of window"General"
                    click
                    click menu item "Other..." of menu 1 -- three dots is an ellipsis, not three periods
               end tell
               -- Open the "go to folder" dialogue box
               keystroke "g" using {shift down, command down}
               -- Paste the folder path into the location field
               tell window "Go To Folder"
                    keystroke "v" using {command down}
                    keystroke return
               end tell
               click button "Select" of sheet 1 of window "General"
               -- close the preferences
               keystroke "w" using {command down}
          end tell
          -- restore frontmost application after job is complete
          tell application frontApp to activate
     else
          -- if Safari is NOT running, then use the defaults command to change the preferences
          do shell script ("defaults write com.apple.Safari DownloadsPath " & dlFolder)
     end if
end if
-- Function to convert home path references to full paths
on convertHome(currentpath)
     if currentpath contains "~/" then
          set oldDelimiter to AppleScript's text item delimiters
          set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"~/"}
          set textPath to every text item of currentpath
          set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelimiter
          set currentpath to POSIX path of (path to home folder as text) & item 2 in textPath
     end if
     return currentpath
end convertHome
-- Function to check if application "appName" is running (in this case, used for Safari)
on appIsRunning(appName)
     tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end appIsRunning

Who is on my Airport Network?

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