List of users connected to ad-hoc wifi sharing network?

[gabedamien]

Hello,

Not having (or needing) a wireless router, I use Mac OS X's internet sharing protocol via a password-protected ad-hoc network from my macbook pro to my iPhone. This way I can browse apps, facebook, etc. much faster on my phone, and also sync apps like Pastebot and Things.

Although I don't have great reason to believe that anyone is going to attempt to or succeed at hacking into this wifi, I was wondering a couple of things. First, is there any way to see what users are actually connected to my ad hoc network? Second, is there any way to set the network to not broadcast itself (i.e., to make it invisible unless a user knows the network name?).

Thanks in advance to any networking guru willing to answer the above!
—G

 

[appleguy123]

Can't you look in finder under devices?

 

[gabedamien]

Can't you look in finder under devices?

Well, my iPhone doesn't show up there, so I'm not sure why other people's computers would.

 

[gabedamien]

Still interested in this. Surely there must be a simple way of listing all clients connected to an ad-hoc network?

 

[IDANNY]

couldnt you put a password on the adhoc network then not need to worry about it?

 

[gabedamien]

IDanny,

I do have a password on it. But I'm in a 22-story building in Manhattan—I am literally surrounded by a mass of wifi users, all of whom can see my computer. Even though most could never log in without a password, I'd rather that NONE could (I should probably bump the security to the 128-bit key). In fact, I'd rather that nobody could even see the network—i.e., that it did not advertise itself.

When I used a wireless router (previous living space) I had it not advertise itself, I used 128-bit encryption, and I could filter access by MAC address. I could also log into the router and see at a glance all of the clients connected to it. It seems like an incredibly basic and obvious thing that Apple should enable at LEAST to see what is actually connected to an ad-hoc network, even if it doesn't allow MAC filters or non-advertised networking.

Is there anyone out there who can actually address my question instead of changing it into something else? (No offense to those who replied already, I do value your suggestions and appreciate your taking the time to answer me).

 

[adiand]

List mac addresses that have been accessing ad-hoc / wifi sharing

I was wondering the same and found out this information is available in system.log (fire up Console application and search for "osif_connect"

You should see something like:
Sep 8 05:09:31 MySSID kernel[0]: 1148176.661388: osif_connect_event: sta: DE:VI:CE:MA:CA:AD arrive message posted
Sep 8 05:14:01 MySSID kernel[0]: 1148446.855516: osif_connect_event: sta: DE:VI:CE:MA:CA:AD arrive message posted
Sep 8 05:14:02 MySSID kernel[0]: 1148448.103477: osif_connect_event: sta: DE:VI:CE:MA:CA:AD arrive message posted
Sep 8 05:59:10 MySSID kernel[0]: 1151156.174274: osif_connect_event: sta: DE:VI:CE:MA:CA:AD arrive message posted

Here MySSID is the ssid for your wifi-share and DE:VI:CE:MA:CA:AD is the mac address of the devices that connect.

To view historic connections open Terminal and issue the following commands:
cd /private/var/log
zgrep "osif_connect_event" system.log.*.gz | cut -d: -f2- | sort