Category: Windows

Here’s a quick snippet to get the IP, MAC address and Vendor using PowerShell in Windows with the native arp -a command and curl. It is based on accessing my MAC lookup tool.

$arpOutput = arp -a

foreach ($line in $arpOutput) {
    if ($line -match '(\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3})\s+([a-fA-F0-9:-]{17})') {
        $ip = $matches[1]
        $mac = $matches[2]
	$vendor = curl https://techish.net/mac/$mac
        Write-Output "IP: $ip, MAC: $mac, Vendor: $vendor"
    }
}

Note: You could do a quick ping sweep of the network you’re on so that the arp cache is fresh:

for /l %x in (1,1,254) do @ping -n 1 -w 25 192.168.0.%x | find /I "bytes="

Note: I have setup a script you can use with PowerShell to do a scan and output the data in comma delimited format.

irm https://techish.net/mac/scan | iex

You can save to a CSV using something like this

irm https://techish.net/mac/scan | iex | out-file scan.csv -encoding UTF8

You could also output to clipboard

irm https://techish.net/mac/scan | iex | clip

This PowerShell one-liner is a convenient way to monitor log files in real-time and quickly spot error messages. The script continuously reads the log and highlights lines that contain the word “error” with a red background, making them easy to identify. It’s a handy tool for troubleshooting or monitoring system activities, especially when dealing with logs generated by tools like DISM.

gc .\dism.log -wait |foreach-object { if ($_ -match "error"){write-host -foregroundcolor white -BackgroundColor red $_} else {write-host $_}}

Explanation:

1. gc .\dism.log -wait
   • gc is short for Get-Content, a PowerShell cmdlet that reads the content of a file.
   • .\dism.log specifies the file to read, which is dism.log. This log file is typically generated by the Deployment Imaging Service and Management Tool (DISM), often used for Windows image management.
   • The -wait parameter makes Get-Content continuously monitor the log file in real-time, displaying new content as it is written to the file. This is especially useful for live monitoring of logs.
2. | foreach-object
   • The | symbol (pipeline) sends the output of the Get-Content cmdlet to the next part of the command.
   • foreach-object is a loop that processes each line of the log file one by one as it is being read.
3. if ($_ -match "error")
   • $_ represents the current line of the log file being processed in the loop.
   • -match "error" checks if the current line contains the word “error” (case-insensitive by default in PowerShell). This is the key part that identifies lines with errors in the log.
4. write-host -foregroundcolor white -BackgroundColor red $_
   • If the line contains the word “error,” this part of the command prints it to the console with a white foreground (text color) and a red background for visibility, signaling an error.
   • $_ again represents the line being processed.
5. else { write-host $_ }
   • If the line doesn’t contain “error,” it simply prints the line normally, without any special formatting.

Example:

Suppose you are monitoring the dism.log file and a line like this is written to the log:

2024-10-11 14:55:12, Error DISM DISM.EXE: Failed to load the provider

In the console, this line will be printed in white text with a red background, making it easy to spot among other log entries.