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In our corporate environment we use our laptops for embedded software development. Our machines only have one NIC. We purchased additional USB-Ethernet dongles. They were originally configured with a static IP address for our private LAN on the embedded device. Now we need to test multiple configurations and it seems our corporate network overlords don't want use changing our network configuration of the primary NIC which connects to the corporate network. So they shutdown all ability to change any network settings. I'm not looking to go against the system administrators, I just want to find a happy medium.

So, In win7 is it possible to configure a user with the ability to change the static IP address of a NIC, limited by Subnet?

Or, provide permissions on a per MAC address basis?

Or, Is it possible to create several configurations that the user can choose from?

Or, What are some other options, VM excluded (No VM's allowed here)?

All without admin privileges...

Jerunh
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  • I would suggest it is a bad idea to actively go against your administrators. To be a non admin changing these settings, you need to be part of the "Network Configuration Operators" group. Perhaps you should communicate with the administrators, and find a comprimise which suites you both (A test network/Switch/Router that you can connect to for example) – Lister Feb 01 '17 at 19:44
  • Or to run a pre-approved script which changes a specific NIC? (Or maybe changes any NICs setting except one). Or if they cannot write sunch a script themselves: RUn a VM (e.g. wmware player, it is free) and attach the USB NIC only to that. Plenty of options. I just do not know how to do the ones you asked. – Hennes Feb 01 '17 at 19:44
  • @Lister I'm not looking to go against my Admins, I'm looking for an alternate solution that would work for all of us. They seem to think it's all or nothing. I have a hard time believing that, but I've exhausted my personal knowledge in trying to find a good answer. – Jerunh Feb 01 '17 at 20:11
  • @Hennes I've Updated to the question to be a bit more open ended in terms of solutions to the problem. Would you please share other alternatives? – Jerunh Feb 01 '17 at 20:14
  • @Jerunh See if they would go for the network config ops group/ the test environment – Lister Feb 01 '17 at 21:43

1 Answers1

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Fist off all, if they do not trust you with normal access then maybe we can build a script similar to below. (Script set to not writeable by anyone but admin, and using this to run elevated).

@echo off
echo Welcome to CORPname network helped tool v0.0!
for /f "tokens=1 delims=:" %%j in ('ping %computername% -4 -n 1 ^| findstr Reply') do (
    set localip=%%j
)
echo Your local IP is:"%localip%"

echo when selecting the IP for the USB NIC make sure it is different!
set /p netwanted="Enter net network IP in decimal digit format (e.g. 1.2.3.4): "
set /p maskwanted="enter desired netmask: "
set /p gatewaywanted="What should the gateway be? "

echo Configuring interface "local area connection2" with new values
netsh int ip set address "local area connection2" static %netwanted% %maskwanted% %gatewaywanted% 1

And no, the script is not done yet. It is just a rought draft from someone who never worked with batch files. I got most part from looking around here on [su], from posts like this one.

And it really should have some safety checks, not just a text in the screen stating to please choose carefully. And it might be nice to choose which network instead of assuming local era network2. Some kind of reading all available networks, filtering out the corp one and presenting them in a menu, and ... and ... and ...

But I am just claiming this is a potential first draft of a solution. And corp IT might refine it, bullet proof it etc. etc.


Now if only comments had markup I could have posted it as a comment since I do not feel that this is worth a full answer. But unless I take a screenshot and link that in a comment I will loose all markup and it will become an unreadable mess.
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Hennes
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