I want to get the MAC address for my network interface on Linux. I am using Python with PyQt4 modules. When I run this code:
form PyQt4.QtNetwork import *
def getinfo():
all_info = QNetworkInterface().allInterfaces()
for interface in all_info:
print interface.hardwareAddress()," ",interface.humanReadableName()
I get this outout:
00:00:00:00:00:00 lo
00:26:2D:8C:8F:B3 eth3
F0:7B:CB:3B:82:2B wlan3
ppp0
It works fine with eth3 and wlan3, but with ppp0 which runs on my mobile broadband modem, the MAC address doesn't appear.
ppp doesn't use a MAC (hardware) address:
ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:172.27.42.1 P-t-P:172.27.42.17 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:416 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:397 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:253765 (247.8 Kb) TX bytes:62621 (61.1 Kb)
In general, if you're looking for network interface management in Python, look no further than netifaces. It is designed to be cross-platform on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.
>>> import netifaces as ni
>>> ni.interfaces()
['lo', 'eth0', 'eth1', 'vboxnet0', 'dummy1']
>>> ni.ifaddresses('eth0')
{17: [{'broadcast': 'ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff', 'addr': '00:02:55:7b:b2:f6'}], 2: [{'broadcast': '24.19.161.7', 'netmask': '255.255.255.248', 'addr': '24.19.161.6'}], 10: [{'netmask': 'ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::', 'addr': 'fe80::202:55ff:fe7b:b2f6%eth0'}]}
>>>
>>> ni.ifaddresses.__doc__
'Obtain information about the specified network interface.\n\nReturns a dict whose keys are equal to the address family constants,\ne.g. netifaces.AF_INET, and whose values are a list of addresses in\nthat family that are attached to the network interface.'
>>> # for the IPv4 address of eth0
>>> ni.ifaddresses('eth0')[2][0]['addr']
'24.19.161.6'
The numbers used to index protocols are from /usr/include/linux/socket.h (in Linux)...
#define AF_INET 2 /* Internet IP Protocol */
#define AF_INET6 10 /* IP version 6 */
#define AF_PACKET 17 /* Packet family */