I want to determine the MAC-address of my Wi-Fi interface on a Raspberry Pi Z W running Raspbian Lite.
Is there a command that I can run to tell me this? Is there a device in the /proc tree that will disclose it?
3 Answers
The following is a fragment of a bash script I use to determine the MAC of Ethernet, or if this does not exist of WiFi (for Pi Zero W).
It does not rely on ifconfig or any other method of detecting allocated IP, and just needs the system to detect the networking hardware.
This works for Jessie, Stretch or Buster
# Find MAC of eth0, or if not exist wlan0
if [ -e /sys/class/net/eth0 ]; then
MAC=$(cat /sys/class/net/eth0/address)
elif [ -e /sys/class/net/enx* ]; then
MAC=$(cat /sys/class/net/enx*/address)
else
MAC=$(cat /sys/class/net/wlan0/address)
fi
Basically you could use MAC=$(cat /sys/class/net/wlan0/address) to find the MAC of inbuilt WiFi on Pi3 or Pi Zero W.
MAC=$(cat /sys/class/net/wlx*/address) should work on WiFi dongles on Stretch, but you could easily adapt the above to work on both Jessie or Stretch for WiFi and Ethernet.
answered Aug 29, 2017 at 12:04
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Very good answer. Thank you! Does Raspbian Stretch use predictable network interface names? Do they affect the naming of the structure under
/sys/class/net?– BexCommented Aug 30, 2017 at 7:26 -
1@Bex It depends; a fresh install uses predictable network interface names by default, I do not know about upgrades. It is simple to restore former behaviour, see How do I set up networking/WiFi/Static IP for detail. Whatever name is selected by the hardware enumeration process should be shown. There are several methods of modifying this process. Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 7:44
Enter in terminal/console ifconfig wlan0 At the end of the first line should be the hardware address aka MAC.
Here a sample output (German locale):
pi@RasPi0w-1:~ $ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet Hardware Adresse b8:27:eb:xx:xx:xx
...
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I have upvoted this answer - but I don't think
ifconfigis a good alternative going forward.– BexCommented Aug 30, 2017 at 7:13 -
1
Many distros is replacing ifconfig with ip so I would discourage the use of ifconfig.
To show the wlan0 interface:
ip link show wlan0
or
cat /sys/class/net/wlan0/address
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I'm pretty sure
ifconfigwill still be available for many years. Removing it will save a measly 800 kB, breaking a lot of old scripts. Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 15:22 -
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1To continue to use a deprecated command in new implementations is sad. I have seen this in work related situations, and its like pushing the problem in front of you, and at a point in time it will get to big! Start dealing with it instead!– MatsKCommented Aug 29, 2017 at 16:29
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2In this case,
ip link showis probably more appropriate thanip addr show.– BobCommented Aug 30, 2017 at 0:40 -
1In my desktop system I run Debian Stretch, that does not seem to have
ifconfigby default anymore, Raspbian Stretch seem to have it. I preferipoverifconfig, though I think Bob is right in saying thatlinkis probably more appropriate thanaddrin this context. The solution I did go for, though, was to read it from/sys/class/net/wlan0/address- no additional parsing necessary. Additionally, I write it ascat /sys/class/net/wl*/addressin a naïve attempt to make it save for the coming "predicable network interface names".– BexCommented Aug 30, 2017 at 7:20
ifconfig wlan0At the end of the first line should be the hardware address aka MAC.