get_mac_address¶

getmac.getmac.get_mac_address(interface=None, ip=None, ip6=None, hostname=None, network_request=True)[source]¶

Get a MAC address from a local interface or remote host.

Only ONE of the first four arguments may be used: interface, ip, ip6, or hostname. If none of the arguments are selected, the default network interface for the system will be used.

The MAC is usually a unicast IEEE 802 MAC-48 address.

Note

"localhost" or "127.0.0.1" will always return "00:00:00:00:00:00"

Note

It is assumed that the host is using Ethernet or Wi-Fi. While other protocols such as Bluetooth may work, this has not been tested and should not be relied upon. If this functionality is needed, please open an issue or PR.

Note

Exceptions raised by methods are handled silently and returned as None.

Parameters:

interface (Union[str, bytes, None]) – Name of a local network interface (e.g “Ethernet 3”, “eth0”, “ens32”)
ip (Union[str, bytes, IPv4Address, IPv4Interface, IPv6Address, IPv6Interface, None]) – Canonical dotted decimal IPv4 address of a remote host (e.g 192.168.0.1), or a ipaddress object (IPv4Address or IPv4Interface). This will also accept IPv6Address and IPv6Interface, and treat them as if ip6 argument was set instead.
ip6 (Union[str, bytes, IPv6Address, IPv6Interface, None]) – Canonical shortened IPv6 address of a remote host (e.g ff02::1:ffe7:7f19), or a ipaddress object (IPv6Address or IPv6Interface).
hostname (Union[str, bytes, None]) – DNS hostname of a remote host (e.g “router1.mycorp.com”, “localhost”)
network_request (bool) – If network requests should be made when attempting to find the MAC of a remote host. If the arping command is available, this will be used. If not, a UDP packet will be sent to the remote host to populate the ARP/NDP tables for IPv4/IPv6. The port this packet is sent to can be configured using the setting getmac.variables.Settings.PORT (by default, it’s port 55555).

Return type:

Optional[str]

Returns:

Lowercase colon-separated MAC address. If no MAC was found, or an exception occurred, None is returned.

Raises:

RuntimeError – If no valid methods are found for the type of MAC requested, or another critical error occurs (potentially due to a bug in getmac).