Pure-Python package to get the MAC address of network interfaces and hosts on the local network.

It provides a platform-independent interface to get the MAC addresses of:

• System network interfaces (by interface name)
• Remote hosts on the local network (by IPv4/IPv6 address or hostname)

It provides one function: get_mac_address()

Should you use this package?

If you only need the addresses of network interfaces, have a limited set of platforms to support, and are able to handle C-extension modules, then you should instead check out the excellent netifaces package by Alastair Houghton (@al45tair). It's significantly faster (thanks to it being C-code) and has been around a long time and seen widespread usage. However, unfortunately it is no longer maintained as of May 2021, so it may not be a great choice for new projects. Another great option that fits these requirements is the well-known and battle-hardened psutil package by Giampaolo Rodola.

If the only system you need to run on is Linux, you can run as root, and C-extensions modules are fine, then you should instead check out the arpreq package by Sebastian Schrader. In some cases it can be significantly faster.

If you want to use psutil, scapy, or netifaces, I have examples of how to do so in a GitHub Gist.

Installation

Stable release from PyPI

pip install getmac

Latest development version

pip install https://github.com/ghostofgoes/getmac/archive/main.tar.gz

Python examples

from getmac import get_mac_address
eth_mac = get_mac_address(interface="eth0")
win_mac = get_mac_address(interface="Ethernet 3")
ip_mac = get_mac_address(ip="192.168.0.1")
ip6_mac = get_mac_address(ip6="::1")
host_mac = get_mac_address(hostname="localhost")
updated_mac = get_mac_address(ip="10.0.0.1", network_request=True)

# Enable debugging
from getmac import getmac
getmac.DEBUG = 2  # DEBUG level 2
print(getmac.get_mac_address(interface="Ethernet 3"))

# Change the UDP port used for updating the ARP table (UDP packet)
from getmac import getmac
getmac.PORT = 44444  # Default is 55555
print(getmac.get_mac_address(ip="192.168.0.1", network_request=True))

Terminal examples

Python 2 users: use getmac2 or python -m getmac instead of getmac.

getmac --help
getmac --version

# Invoking with no arguments will return MAC of the default interface
getmac

# Usage as a module
python3 -m getmac

# Interface names, IPv4/IPv6 addresses, or Hostnames can be specified
getmac --interface ens33
getmac --ip 192.168.0.1
getmac --ip6 ::1
getmac --hostname home.router

# Running as a Python module with shorthands for the arguments
python -m getmac -i 'Ethernet 4'
python -m getmac -4 192.168.0.1
python -m getmac -6 ::1
python -m getmac -n home.router

# Getting the MAC address of a remote host requires the ARP table to be populated.
# By default, getmac will populate the table by sending a UDP packet to a high port on the host (defaults to 55555).
# This can be disabled with --no-network-request, as shown here:
getmac --no-network-request --ip 192.168.0.1
python -m getmac --no-network-request -n home.router

# Enable output messages
getmac --verbose

# Debug levels can be specified with '-d'
getmac -v --debug
python -m getmac -v -d -i enp11s4
python -m getmac -v -dd -n home.router

# Change the UDP port used for populating the ARP table when getting the MAC of a remote host
getmac --ip 192.168.0.1 --override-port 9001

# The platform detected by getmac can be overridden via '--override-platform'.
# This is useful when debugging issues or if you know a method
# for a different platform works on the current platform.
# Any values returned by platform.system() are valid.
getmac -i eth0 --override-platform linux
getmac --ip 192.168.0.1 --override-platform windows

# Force a specific method to be used, regardless of the consequences or if it even works
getmac -v -dddd --ip 192.168.0.1 --force-method ctypeshost

Function: get_mac_address()

• interface: Name of a network interface on the system
• ip: IPv4 address of a remote host
• ip6: IPv6 address of a remote host
• hostname: Hostname of a remote host
• network_request: If an network request should be made to update and populate the ARP/NDP table of remote hosts used to lookup MACs in most circumstances. Disable this if you want to just use what's already in the table, or if you have requirements to prevent network traffic. The network request is a empty UDP packet sent to a high port, 55555 by default. This can be changed by setting getmac.PORT to the desired integer value. Additionally, on Windows, this will send a UDP packet to 1.1.1.1:53 to attempt to determine the default interface (Note: the IP is CloudFlare's DNS server).

Configuration

• logging.getLogger("getmac"): Runtime messages and errors are recorded to the getmac logger using Python's logging module. They can be configured by using logging.basicConfig() or adding handlers to the "getmac" logger.
• getmac.getmac.DEBUG: integer value that controls debugging output. The higher the value, the more output you get.
• getmac.getmac.PORT: UDP port used to populate the ARP/NDP table (see the documentation of the network_request argument in get_mac_address() for details)
• getmac.getmac.OVERRIDE_PLATFORM: Override the platform detection with the given value (e.g. "linux", "windows", "freebsd", etc.'). Any values returned by platform.system() are valid.
• getmac.getmac.FORCE_METHOD: Force a specific method to be used, e.g. 'IpNeighborShow'. This will be used regardless of it's method type or platform compatibility, and Method.test() will NOT be checked! The list of available methods is in getmac.getmac.METHODS.

Features

• Pure-Python (no compiled C-extensions required!)
• Python 2.7 and 3.4+
• Lightweight, with no dependencies and a small package size
• Can be dropped into a project as a standalone .py file
• Supports most interpreters: CPython, pypy, pypy3, IronPython 2.7, and Jython 2.7
• Provides a simple command line tool (when installed as a package)
• MIT licensed!

Legacy Python versions

If you are running a old Python (2.6/3.3 and older) or interpreter, then you can install an older version of getmac that supported that version. The wheels are available in the GitHub releases, or from PyPI with a current version of pip and some special arguments.

• Python 2.5: get-mac 0.5.0
• Python 2.6: getmac 0.6.0
• Python 3.2: get-mac 0.3.0
• Python 3.3: get-mac 0.3.0

NOTE: these versions do not have many of the performance improvements, platform support, and bug fixes that came with later releases. They generally work, just not as well. However, if you're using such an old Python, you probably don't care about all that :)

Notes

• Python 3.10 and 3.11 should work, but are not automatically tested at the moment due to having to support 2.7
• If none of the arguments are selected, the default network interface for the system will be used. If the default network interface cannot be determined, then it will attempt to fallback to typical defaults for the platform (Ethernet on Windows, em0 on BSD, en0 on OSX/Darwin, and eth0 otherwise). If that fails, then it will fallback to lo on POSIX systems.
• "Remote hosts" refer to hosts in your local layer 2 network, also commonly referred to as a "broadcast domain", "LAN", or "VLAN". As far as I know, there is not a reliable method to get a MAC address for a remote host external to the LAN. If you know any methods otherwise, please open a GitHub issue or shoot me an email, I'd love to be wrong about this.
• The first four arguments are mutually exclusive. network_request does not have any functionality when the interface argument is specified, and can be safely set if using in a script.
• The physical transport is assumed to be Ethernet (802.3). Others, such as Wi-Fi (802.11), are currently not tested or considered. I plan to address this in the future, and am definitely open to pull requests or issues related to this, including error reports.
• Exceptions will be handled silently and returned as a None. If you run into problems, you can set DEBUG to true and get more information about what's happening. If you're still having issues, please create an issue on GitHub and include the output with DEBUG enabled.

Commands and techniques by platform

• Windows
  • Commands: getmac.exe, ipconfig.exe, arp.exe, wmic.exe
  • Libraries: uuid, ctypes, socket
• Linux/Unix
  • Commands: arp, ip, ifconfig, netstat, ip link, lanscan
  • Libraries: uuid, fcntl, socket
  • Files: /sys/class/net/{iface}/address, /proc/net/arp
  • Default interfaces: /proc/net/route, route, ip route list
• Mac OSX (Darwin)
  • networksetup
  • Same commands as Linux
• WSL
  • Windows commands are used for remote hosts
  • Unix commands are used for interfaces
• OpenBSD
  • Commands: ifconfig, arp
  • Default interfaces: route
• FreeBSD
  • Commands: ifconfig, arp
  • Default interfaces: netstat
• Android
  • Commands: ip link

Platforms currently supported

All or almost all features should work on "supported" platforms. While other versions of the same family or distro may work, they are untested and may have bugs or missing features.

• Windows
  • Desktop: 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11 (thanks @StevenLooman for testing Windows 11!)
  • Server: TBD
  • Partially supported (untested): 2000, XP, Vista
• Linux distros
  • CentOS/RHEL 6+
  • Ubuntu 16.04+ (15.10 and older should work, but are untested)
  • Fedora (24+)
• Mac OSX (Darwin)
  • The latest two versions probably (TBD)
• Android (6+)
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
• FreeBSD (11+)
• OpenBSD
• Docker

Docker

Add -v /proc/1/net/arp:/host/arp -e ARP_PATH=/host/arp to access arp table of host inside container in bridge network mode.

docker build -f packaging/Dockerfile -t getmac .
docker run -it getmac:latest --help
docker run -it getmac:latest --version
docker run -it getmac:latest -n localhost
docker run --rm -it -v /proc/1/net/arp:/host/arp -e ARP_PATH=/host/arp getmac:latest -n 192.168.0.1

Caveats

• Depending on the platform, there could be a performance detriment, due to heavy usage of regular expressions.
• Platform test coverage is imperfect. If you're having issues, then you might be using a platform I haven't been able to test. Keep calm, open a GitHub issue, and I'd be more than happy to help.

Known Issues

• Linux, WSL: Getting the mac of a local interface IP does not currently work (getmac --ip 10.0.0.4 will fail if 10.0.0.4 is the IP address of a local interface). This issue may be present on other POSIX systems as well.
• Hostnames for IPv6 devices are not yet supported.
• Windows: the "default" (used when no arguments set or specified) of selecting the default route interface only works effectively if network_request is enabled. If not, Ethernet is used as the default.
• IPv6 support is good but lags behind IPv4 in some places and isn't as well-tested across the supported platform set.

Background and history

The Python standard library has a robust set of networking functionality, such as urllib, ipaddress, ftplib, telnetlib, ssl, and more. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered there was not a way to get a seemingly simple piece of information: a MAC address. This package was born out of a need to get the MAC address of hosts on the network without needing admin permissions, and a cross-platform way get the addresses of local interfaces.

In Fall 2018 the package name changed to getmac from get-mac. This affected the package name, the CLI script, and some of the documentation. There were no changes to the core library code. While both package names will updated on PyPI, the use of getmac is preferred.

In Summer 2020, the code was significantly refactored, moving to a class-based structure and significantly improving performance and accuracy. See docs/rewrite.md for details.

Contributing

Contributors are more than welcome! See the contribution guide to get started, and checkout the todo list for a full list of tasks and bugs.

Before submitting a PR, please make sure you've completed the pull request checklist!

The Python Discord server is a good place to ask questions or discuss the project (Handle: @KnownError#0001).

Contributors

• Christopher Goes (@ghostofgoes) - Author and maintainer
• Calvin Tran (@cyberhobbes) - Windows interface detection improvements
• Daniel Flanagan (@FlantasticDan) - Code cleanup
• @emadmahdi - Android fixes
• Izra Faturrahman (@Frizz925) - Unit tests using the platform samples
• Jose Gonzalez (@Komish) - Docker container and Docker testing
• @fortunate-man - Awesome usage videos
• @martmists - legacy Python compatibility improvements
• @hargoniX - scripts and specfiles for RPM packaging
• Ville Skyttä (@scop) - arping lookup support
• Tomasz Duda (@tomaszduda23) - support for docker in network bridge mode
• Steven Looman (@StevenLooman) - Windows 11 testing
• Reimund Renner (@raymanP) - macOS fixes

Sources

Many of the methods used to acquire an address and the core logic framework are attributed to the CPython project's UUID implementation.

• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/uuid.py
• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/2.7/Lib/uuid.py

Other notable sources

• _unix_fcntl_by_interface
• _windows_get_remote_mac_ctypes
• String joining

License

MIT. Feel free to copy, modify, and use to your heart's content. Enjoy :)