What is “by mac address monitoring mode”?
WFilter supports both “by ip address monitoring mode” and “by mac address monitoring mode”.
In “by mac address mode”, WFilter identifies a client device based on it’s physical MAC address. Even ip address of this device is modified(either by DHCP or by hand), WFilter still can identify it correctly. So the monitoring mode is useful in DHCP networks.
I would recommend you to choose monitoring mode in below steps:
- If ip addresses are static(or can be static), “by ip address” monitoring mode is recommended.
- If ip addresses are dynamic, “by mac address monitoring mode” is recommended for single-segment networks.
2. by mac address solution for multiple-segment networks
In a multiple-segment network, the core switch(gateway) will hide the real mac addresses of client devices, which makes the mac address monitoring mode not working.
In WFilter Enterprise 4.1, a program named “MAC Address Collector” is included. This program can detect and gather mac addresses of client devices via SNMP or ARP.
With “mac address collector”, you can monitor by mac addresses even in multiple-segment network.
More details and guide documents can be found at: Monitoring by mac addresses solutions