Question

I need a cross platform method of determining the MAC address of a computer at run time. For windows the ‘wmi’ module can be used and the only method under Linux I could find was to run ifconfig and run a regex across its output. I don’t like using a package that only works on one OS, and parsing the output of another program doesn’t seem very elegant not to mention error prone.

Does anyone know a cross platform method (windows and linux) method to get the MAC address? If not, does anyone know any more elegant methods then those I listed above?

Answer 1

Python 2.5 includes an uuid implementation which (in at least one version) needs the mac address. You can import the mac finding function into your own code easily:

from uuid import getnode as get_mac mac = get_mac() 

The return value is the mac address as 48 bit integer.