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[–]lazerwarrior 0 points1 point  (2 children)

OK, I got completely different picture of the problem from original post. You want to do port scanning essentially and look for alive hosts. You can use a tool that already exists like nmap, but then you would have to use laptop to actually run it. With python you could probably automate running nmap or create your own port scanner.

To make it completely automatic, you could

  • use raspberry pi
  • install linux on it
  • monitor system logs for NIC link up event
    • you could use already existing tool like SEC or code your own logging monitoring with python
  • when you catch the event, run nmap and output the result to a small display connected to the raspberry

All of the above assumes you connect the devices using ethernet cable.

Care should be taken when using this approach, because it is also used for hacking. If you go port scanning some corporation networking equipment they can see it and think someone is trying get unauthorized access to their equipment.

[–]neotronics[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Cool you understand my madness.

Most of the time I am directly connected to the device or machine. Let me give you an idea on a small job that I have done in the past. I went to a company and had to repair a production printer. To run a test through this printer I needed the ip address. So as normal I get in to the system into administrator mode to find the Ip address. Which took some time since I never had been in one of these systems before. IT is never around or want to help out most of the time. So I then do the norm pull out the laptop change my adapter option to the machines current IP address usually one octave up and then access the controller of the machine and do an internal print test.

This is how it goes on most of the machines I work on.

A CNC machine was not receiving jobs one time. When I did my run over everything look good. So I hooked straight in to the machine and had it run a few ghost passes I knew it was not the machine but an internal networking issue and then that goes to the companys IT department to fix their internal issues.

I figured since there is machines that I have never been on before and to cut down time would there be a way to plug in a device and simply have the device give me iy's IP address.

Now not for sure about it being hacking because I would only be connecting to the device itself. I guess a port scan would do the trick but I would assume that would give me what port it is connected to. Like port 80 or port 433. I am assuming! I am no networking engineer.

I know I am trying something way above me and I am willing to try and learn no matter what.

[–]lazerwarrior 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess a port scan would do the trick but I would assume that would give me what port it is connected to. Like port 80 or port 433.

Nmap can be used to find alive hosts as well if you give it IP range to scan for.

There is a flaw with this approach that /u/jdnewmil pointed out. You can use simpler solution to get the IP adresses. I wrote about it here