ARP / net-tools installation

Hi and thanks for replying, the script looks up a MAC address for a given IP. (see end of message).

re: "However, it won't work here - arp needs access to the "/proc/net" system directory and I don't think that's gonna happen."

I was given permission to do this by Patrick in support now it seems I can't do this at all, bother!

re: "You may be better off trying to dork with the PHP rather than playing unix games." any suggestions on where to start dorking ?

Finally if I can't be allowed to use ARP or get ARP to work locally BIG QUESTION - Could Dreamhost hack a version of ARP so it only returns the ARP table and allow me to give access to that version of ARP.

I am sure many of Dreamhosts customers would also be interested in this facility - specially if it means able to look up MAC addresses and block nasty users.

This would obviously mean Dreamhost support are wonderful people who will do anything to help their discerning clientele

Miss Pixie
aka Alison

function returnMacAddress() {
// This code is under the GNU Public Licence
// Written by michael_stankiewicz {don't spam} at yahoo {no spam} dot com
// Tested only on linux, please report bugs

// WARNING: the commands 'which' and 'arp' should be executable
// by the apache user; on most linux boxes the default configuration
// should work fine

// Get the arp executable path
$location = `which arp`;
// Execute the arp command and store the output in $arpTable
$arpTable = `$location`;
// Split the output so every line is an entry of the $arpSplitted array
$arpSplitted = split("\n",$arpTable);
// Get the remote ip address (the ip address of the client, the browser)
$remoteIp = $GLOBALS['REMOTE_ADDR'];
// Cicle the array to find the match with the remote ip address
foreach ($arpSplitted as $value) {
// Split every arp line, this is done in case the format of the arp
// command output is a bit different than expected
$valueSplitted = split(" ",$value);
foreach ($valueSplitted as $spLine) {
if (preg_match("/$remoteIp/",$spLine)) {
$ipFound = true;
}
// The ip address has been found, now rescan all the string
// to get the mac address
if ($ipFound) {
// Rescan all the string, in case the mac address, in the string
// returned by arp, comes before the ip address
// (you know, Murphy's laws)
reset($valueSplitted);
foreach ($valueSplitted as $spLine) {
if (preg_match("/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f][:-]".
"[0-9a-f][0-9a-f][:-]".
"[0-9a-f][0-9a-f][:-]".
"[0-9a-f][0-9a-f][:-]".
"[0-9a-f][0-9a-f][:-]".
"[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/i",$spLine)) {
return $spLine;
}
}
}
$ipFound = false;
}
}
return false;
}