Getting MAC address from a network interface
This page shows you how to obtain the MAC address from a network interface.
Simple sample of getting MAC address information
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h> /* for strncpy */
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <net/if.h>
int
main()
{
int fd;
struct ifreq ifr;
fd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
ifr.ifr_addr.sa_family = AF_INET;
strncpy(ifr.ifr_name, "eth0", IFNAMSIZ-1);
ioctl(fd, SIOCGIFHWADDR, &ifr);
close(fd);
/* display result */
printf("%.2x:%.2x:%.2x:%.2x:%.2x:%.2x\n",
(unsigned char)ifr.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data[0],
(unsigned char)ifr.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data[1],
(unsigned char)ifr.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data[2],
(unsigned char)ifr.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data[3],
(unsigned char)ifr.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data[4],
(unsigned char)ifr.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data[5]);
return 0;
}
On Linux platform, you can use ioctl to obtain the MAC address information. To use ioctl, you must create a socket. The important thing is that the socket family used is AF_INET. You can use either TCP(SOCK_STREAM) or UDP(SOCK_DGRAM) socket. This sample uses an UDP socket.
The socket used to get the MAC address information can be closed after obtaining the MAC address information. You can use it as a normal socket to communicate too