What is Mac filtering?

[AlanAlan]

I want to know what is Mac filtering it was toggle on for my network. What does it do?

 

 

I bought a new laptop couldn't connect to my network but to others, so I downloaded new drivers for and at the same time I disable Mac filtering.

It seems to me that when Mac filtering is toggled on my Internet I more faster and when it is off it is slower.

[Starelementpoke]

12 minutes ago, AlanAlan said:

I want to know what is Mac filtering it was toggle on for my network. What does it do?

 

 

I bought a new laptop couldn't connect to my network but to others, so I downloaded new drivers for and at the same time I disable Mac filtering.

It seems to me that when Mac filtering is toggled on my Internet I more faster and when it is off it is slower.

It´s like an ID badge verification of sorts. Only devices with their ID registered in the network can have access to said network.

[mclarence]

Each device on the network has a MAC address (for example, 00:1b:63:84:45:e6). When you enable MAC filtering in your router it will restrict any device from connecting to the network unless you have whitelisted (added) the MAC address into the router. If you are doing this to secure your network I would not recommend it since it is extremely simple to bypass MAC filtering and would make only a small difference in security throughout your network.

[Guest]

On 08/03/2016 at 1:35 AM, AlanAlan said:

I want to know what is Mac filtering it was toggle on for my network. What does it do?

 

 

I bought a new laptop couldn't connect to my network but to others, so I downloaded new drivers for and at the same time I disable Mac filtering.

It seems to me that when Mac filtering is toggled on my Internet I more faster and when it is off it is slower.

MAC filtering is a form of authentication for wireless and wired networks.

 

In a wireless environment, only whitelisted MAC addresses will be able to access the network - if you're not on that list and even if you're autenticated via a password or RADIUS server, you still won't have access. The downside is that it's quite difficult to maintain.

 

The other form of of MAC authenticaion is based on switches and is more common in environments where security is parramount. It works on the same principle of MAC addresses being whitelisted on a switch however there are three variable outcomes.

 

• Allow the connection but flag it in an alert (SMTP/POP/RSS)
• Null route the connection and flag it
• Null route the connection, close the port and flag it.

Closing the port means that a sys admin will have to then renable the port before traffic can flow, even if it's from a device that is whitelisted.