Where does ifconfig obtain the MAC address from in Linux?

[j777]

Hello,

Is there a way to read the MAC address of a linux system directly? ie not from the output of arp or ifconfig ---> Where does ifconfig read the MAC address from?


Thanks

 

[chroot]

It reads it from the kernel. You can probably find it somewhere in the /proc filesystem.. I'll browse around.

- Warren

 

[Sane]

Parsing the output, as you suggested, is one way. Looking at a socket object is another. I think this would probably be the best way to do it under Linux.

Here's an example of how one might do this in Python:

import socket
sock = socket.socket (socket.AF_PACKET,socket.SOCK_RAW)
sock.bind (("eth0", 9999))
mac = s.getsockname()[-1]

 

[j777]

I actually just found this example which works.

Thanks for the help chroot and Sane.

http://english.geekpage.jp/programming/linux-network/get-macaddr.php"

 

[Sane]

Haha, yes. That's exactly what I had suggested.

It looks at a socket object to see the MAC address.