Router Accepting Certain Devices

[Rektofen]

Hello everyone. At my school there is WiFi for the teachers but not for the students, so I decided to find out what the password is. I asked around and finally got it. I tried to use the password on my phone and it wouldn't connect. The guy I got it from retyped it into his phone to show me that it was the actual password. I thought this was a little weird, so I went to some of my friends that weren't connected to the teacher's WiFi. I gave them the password only to find out that some of them connected to it and some didn't. I just can't figure out what it is that is letting random devices connect and others not. It isn't specific to a certain phone either, so I'm hoping someone in the community can explain this to me. Thank you.

 

The guy i got the password from has a LG G3 and I have an iPhone 6s as well as one of my friends that got on the teacher's WiFi.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Rektofen
More info

[manikyath]

its actually a pretty common thing in schools where only certain people are allowed wifi access to block entire MAC address ranges, like those commonly used for android devices. (and in schools without rich people up top they generally pass trough the apple MAC addresses as well)

[Rektofen]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

its actually a pretty common thing in schools where only certain people are allowed wifi access to block entire MAC address ranges, like those commonly used for android devices. (and in schools without rich people up top they generally pass trough the apple MAC addresses as well)

I thought about it being something with mac addresses but I tested it with multiple phones android and iphones

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, Rektofen said:

I thought about it being something with mac addresses but I tested it with multiple phones android and iphones

did *all* iphones sit on the same side? (as in did they all connect or fail?) android phones are a bit more finnicky like that, because they're not all by the same manufacturerk, and may have different wireless chips in them. (different brand wireless chip => different MAC address range)

[Rektofen]

7 minutes ago, manikyath said:

did *all* iphones sit on the same side? (as in did they all connect or fail?) android phones are a bit more finnicky like that, because they're not all by the same manufacturerk, and may have different wireless chips in them. (different brand wireless chip => different MAC address range)

5 iPhones (including mine) didn't connect and 7 of them did.

[Paralectic]

Probably an IP address limit where there's a certain maximum of connected devices?

[Rektofen]

1 minute ago, Paralectic said:

Probably an IP address limit where there's a certain maximum of connected devices?

Wouldn't I have to be the last one to connect to it though?

[Guest]

Could be any number of things - MAC range blocking is the most likely in this situation as some people can and some people can't join.

 

Most commonly though it'll be RADIUS/802.1X authentication. It's rare to use MAC address authentication in large wireless networks due to the number of devices.

 

If you're curious:

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Encryption_and_Authentication/Configuring_RADIUS_Authentication_with_WPA2-Enterprise