Is it possible to find a printer's physical location in a building by its IP adress?

Question

I am in a school with probably 200+ computers and I did an IP scan among a certain range and found three or four printers. I was wondering if it would be possible to find these printers in the school, either by using other computers around them and checking their IP address, and narrowing it down that way, or if there was a way to possible map the network using something like NMap, except I don't have the necessary privileges to install a portion of programs like that.

I was just curious as to whether this could be done, any help would be appreciated.

Solution 1

The answer is no, not really. An IP address alone isn't enough information to physically locate a device in a large campus.

While most network administrators are fairly organized, and assign IP addresses in ways that make sense, you can't count on it enough to be certain you can locate a device. (You can guess a device's location by things like its name or the fact that its IP is in the same range as, say, the computers in the art building, but that doesn't mean the printer isn't actually located in the science wing.)

And mapping software cannot give you an exact physical map of a network, either, only an approximate network layout.

If you need to know where a device is, the IP and name and number of hops are all very good clues, but none of them can tell you for certain exactly where the device is physically located. All the suggestions in this thread, though, give you great social engineering methods for finding a device without contacting the network administrator!

Solution 2

I can't believe no one suggested this yet but check to see if the printer has a DNS name

ping -a 192.168.0.200

It may have a good DNS name like "ColorRoom203"

Solution 3

Depends on the topology of the network.

My old school used a single subnet, and whilst they had static ips, they used 10.x.y.z where x was building, y was room, and z was machine/device.

If they do something similar, you may be in luck. If they however use DHCP, I don't think you stand a chance.

If you fancy some detective work, you can try to ping devices and test the latency from different rooms to narrow it down, but again, it depends on the network layout and to be honest, I doubt this will work.

Solution 4

Easiest solution. Print out a page (and use a big font) that says:

Hi there!

I'm a student at Institution, and I'm trying to find this printer. Would you mind calling me at 515-555-1234 (or emailing me at [email protected]) and letting me know where it is?

Thanks!

Your Full Name

Architecture 2003

Solution 5

The easiest to find out printer location from IP-address is to ask the systems administrator who set them up, she'll have records that show location.

You say you don't have privileges to install software, this implies you don't have privileges to send SNMP queries to smart ethernet switches about port-assocations for MAC addresses associated with IP-addresses (in your local ARP table - see arp -a). That might be useful if you had a wiring map.

You could walk through the entire school and get each printer to display or print it's configuration page - printers with embedded NICs will normally include their IP-address in such pages. If printers are attached using HP JetDirect boxes, holding the button down on those makes them print that info. For other makes of "print-server" box (old skool meaning) you might not be able to do this directly.

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Comments

[Tamara Wijsman]

What is the purpose behind this? :)

[Joshua]

Are you an admin trying to find printers installed without authorisation, or just someone who's curious (perhaps a student)? If the latter, tread carefully - running IP scans can be (and has been) construed as hacking, with suspensions and prosecution the consequence.

[tombull89]

From OP's other question: am at a school and am currently enrolled in the computer science class...so, be careful how you tread. If one of my students tried this I'd be surprised (and impressed) but would quietly dissuade them. A school production enviroment is NOT the place to be mucking around.

[tombull89]

Also, depending on the naming scheme of the school, you may be able to find out the name of the printer, which could include the name of the room (for example, HP2600-STAFFRM-1821).

[slhck]

Exactly what I was gonna say. The whole point of IP addresses is location transparency, and unless intended, they don't reveal any physical location at all.

[Linker3000]

Send a print job and rush around, listening! Or send a rude poem or pic to a printer and wait for the Head to come to each classroom to demand (for example) "Who sent THIS to the printer in room G4?"

[William Hilsum]

@linker3000 nice!

[William Hilsum]

I wanted to post (this picture)[edwardnickell.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/imag‌​e.png] as it sort of reminded me of that, but, based on the junk upvote complaints, I thought I better not include it!

[Chris Nava]

Try printing a document "Printer service required. Call 123-456-7890 for assistance." then when they call ask what room the printer is in and "schedule" a service call.

[user606723]

It's unlikely that you'll have more than one router in a school. Even my university had one router that all academic/residential related connections went though.

[Tamara Wijsman]

@user606723: Erm... Sounds like they like a single point of failure. :)

[user606723]

Maybe.. Now that I think about it, there are better ways of doing it. Now, with 200+ computers? not likely.

[Andrew Neely]

That's fun! I always overlook non-technical answers, which are often easier.

[NickAldwin]

Found lots of printers on both my high school and college networks by finding the printer names. Once walked into the middle of a teachers' meeting to get a printout from the only printer on at 7pm. Fun!

[wrosecrans]

I think most schools would have more than one router in between you and anything of interest. You must have gone to a small school. :) Heck, the route between my laptop and my workstation is 7 hops in the small (< 30 people) office where I work. I could easily go more hops than that on the University where I was a sysadmin many moons ago. Of course, finding which router serves the printer's network leaves you with the question of "where's the router," but this is still probably your best bet for getting some idea.

[Tamara Wijsman]

@wrosecrans: Yeah, and that question is a matter of following cables or using a wireless tool to figure out how close you are to the wireless printer...

[user79032]

Ha... Ha... Ha...

[Naidim]

There must have been a hell of a lot of broadcast noise on that network.