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Finding Your Machine's MAC Address: Unix
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In computer networking, a Media Access Control address, better known as MAC address, is a unique identifier assigned to a network adapter or network interface card (NIC) by the manufacturer for identification. The MAC address can also be called the Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA), hardware address, adapter address or physical address. Your computer may have more than one MAC address. Do you have wireless and an ethernet port? Then you have at least two MAC addresses. Your smart phone probably also has a MAC address -- my iPhone has two; one for wireless and one for bluetooth.
MAC addresses are typically 6 groups of two hexadecimal digits (0-9,A,B,C,D,E,F), separated either by colons (:) or hyphens (-). The Wi-Fi Mac address on my iPhone, for example is: 00:1C:B3:09:85:15. The first three numbers, 00:1C:B3, are an Apple manufacturing code; only Apple products will have MAC address starting with those digits. (Settings  General About Wi-Fi Address. :)
Why do you care about MAC addresses? Generally speaking, you don't. But if you are having trouble with connecting to a network or if your computer has been hacked, then the ACCC's security, networking, operations, or repair folks might need you to tell them what it is to help them troubleshoot your problem. So here is how to tell.
Generally in Unix, the command to use is: ifconfig -a
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Solaris/SunOS
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- Become root, using su.
- Enter: ifconfig -a
# ifconfig -a
ce0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu
1500 index 2 inet 128.248.xx.xx netmask ffffff00 broadcast 128.248.xx.255
ether 0:3:ba:21:33:33
- The ethernet device is often called leo or ie0,
but in this case, it is ce0. The MAC address is labeled ether,
it is
00:03:ba:21:33:33 -- note that Solaris and SunOS takes of leading 0's from
MAC addresses. (Actually, it's not
00:03:ba:21:33:33, I changed it to protect the innocent.)
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Linux
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- Become root, using su.
- Enter: ifconfig -a
# ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:09:3D:12:33:33
inet addr:10.248.155.17 Bcast:10.248.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe50::234:3dff:fe12:7d73/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3489041718 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3259212142 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2732221481 (2.5 GiB) TX bytes:4065716672 (3.7 GiB)
Interrupt:185
- The ethernet devices are called eth0, eth1, and
so on The MAC address is in the first line of the output, labeled HWaddr,
it is 00:09:3D:12:33:33. (Actually, it's not 00:09:3D:12:33:33, I changed
it to protect the innocent.)
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FreeBSD/NetBSD
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- Become root, using su.
- Enter: ifconfig
The relevant information is:
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:1f:f3:5b:2b:1f
media: autoselect status: inactive
supported media: autoselect 10baseT/UTP <half-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex>
10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,flow-control>
100baseTX <half-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex,hw-loopback>
100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control> 1000baseT <full-duplex> 1000baseT <full-duplex,hw-loopback>
1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control>
none
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet6 fe80::21f:5bff:fec7:ee2f%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
inet 192.168.1.108 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
ether 00:1f:5b:c7:ee:2f
media: autoselect status: active
supported media: autoselect
- The ethernet port in this example is en0; it
is not being used and its MAC address is ether 00:1f:f3:5b:2b:1f.
The wireless is en1; it is being used and its MAC address
is ether 00:1f:5b:c7:ee:2f. I cheated a bit here; this
output is from my MacBook Pro, Mac OS X 10.5, in a Terminal
window. Underneath the covers, Mac OS X is based on BSD Unix. If you
take a look at the Leopard section on
the Mac and Windows page, you will see that this
is the same MAC address that Mac OS X reports for the AirPort card.
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OpenBSD
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- Become root, using su.
- Enter: netstat -in
The relevant information is:
Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Coll
ef0 1500 131.193.195 something.zone.uic.72967739 0 49389949 0 0
ALL-SYSTEMS.MCAST.
08:00:69:aa:4a:55
lo0 32992 loopback localhost 2320502 0 2320502 0 0
ALL-SYSTEMS.MCAST.
- The name of the adaptor in this case is ef0,
its MAC address is called Address, and
it is 08:00:69:aa:4a:55.
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HP-UX
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Newer versions of HP-UX use: nwmgr --get
For example:
# nwmgr --get
Name/ Interface Station Sub- Interface Related
ClassInstance State Address system Type Interface
============== ========= ============== ======== ============== =========
lan0 UP 0x00306EF4E07C igelan 1000Base-T
lan1 UP 0x000F202B92D4 igelan 1000Base-T
lan2 UP 0x0010837BDE00 btlan 100Base-TX
The Station Address is the MAC address, for example for
lan0, it is 00:30:6E:F4:E0:7C.
In older versions of HP-UX, you might have to use lanscan.
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IRIX
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- Become root, using su.
- Enter: netstat -ia
- The relevant information is:
Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Colls
fxp0 150 <link> 00:08:c7:3c:9b:02 4112773 0 224501 0 0
- The name of the adaptor in this case is fxp0,
its MAC address is called Address, and
it is 00:08:c7:3c:9b:02.
Several people tried this command for me. Most got the MAC address, but some didn't. I have no idea why. Here is another command that even a non-root user can try: /etc/nvram eaddr
Here is the full dope: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sgi/faq/admin/section-3.html.
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AIX
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The ifconfig -a command doesn't return the MAC address under AIX, so you
must use netstat -ia.
- Become root, using su.
- Enter: netstat -ia
The relevant information is:
Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Coll
en0 1500 link#2 0.2.55.3a.0.97 0 0 14 0 0
01:bb:5e:00:cc:01
- The name of the adaptor in this case is en0, its MAC
address is called Address, and
it is 01:bb:5e:00:cc:01
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