Finding devices

[Airslash]

Hello,

I'm not into neworking, but I was wondering if the following is possible:

We have a computer connected to various IP Cameras in the network. These cameras can assign themselves a default IP of the likes 192.168.0.x; this however is not always true.

They're all connected to each other using the LAN interface.
The manufacturers of these cameras provide tools to set up an IP to them using their MAC adress.

What I would like to know, is it possible to make an application that can fetch all the MAC addresses of these cameras whether they have an IP set or not, and give me that list, so I can send a packet to that MAC adress and tell it to take that specific IP?

I think this is kinda playing DHCP server or something, but bit clueless in this domain.

[sicarie]

Yeah, it really sounds like you're looking to set up a DHCP server. Though I would imagine you could also hardcode these IPs into the devices. If you're really wanting DNS, I'd say look into running an Ubuntu server system - that'd probably the easiest to get you started.

[Airslash]

The idea is not to run an actuall DHCP server as this could cause conflicts.

the idea is to run a small tool once that tells every camera in the network, this will be your IP now and after that the device should keep using this IP till tol otherwise.

[sicarie]

Okay, well, it seems like hardcoding the IP would be your best bet, in that case. What kind of cameras are these?

[Airslash]

IP Cameras, currently we use Sony, Panasonic and Axis.
They're all accessible from a webinterface in the camera itself.
But they need to be configured using the tools supplied.

Hence why we want one tool who can configure the cameras instead of using multiple tools.

[sicarie]

Well, you can't use DHCP, you don't want to set them manually....

You could find out what the underlying OS' are, set them up on a network, and run a sniffer to see if they send out any sort of notice that they are booting, and customize them to that, but I don't know of any other tool that might set them.

You could search sourceforge.net and freshmeat.net, I'd be interested to see if you find anything.