Get MAC address in python

MAC address stands for Media Access Control address and it is a unique id assigned to hardware components typically to network devices.
These components are called Network Interface Controllers(NIC).
A MAC address is assigned by the manufacturer and cannot be modified. It is also called Ethernet hardware address, hardware address or physical address.

In this article, we will take a look at 2 different ways to determine MAC address in python.

Method 1: uuid module
Python uuid module has a getnode() method which returns mac address of a hardware.
Remember that a computer has many NIC or network hardwares, so each machine may have many different MAC addresses.

getnode() returns an address of only one of these hardware as a 48 bit integer. Example,

import uuid

mac = uuid.getnode()
print(mac)

This prints

To format it as a hexadecimal value, use hex() function as shown below

import uuid 

mac = uuid.getnode() 
print(hex(mac))

Output is

If you want a properly formatted address as visible in terminal or command prompt, as a 12 digit value separated into blocks of 2 digits each and separated by a colon(:), use below code

import uuid
import re

print (':'.join(re.findall('..', '%012x' % mac)))

This will print

To understand the above code, break it into parts as below

import uuid
import  re

mac= hex(uuid.getnode())
# remove 0x
mac=mac.replace('0x','')
# break into 2 digit list
mac=re.findall('..', mac)
# add : separator
print(':'.join(mac))

1. Determine mac address with getnode() and convert it to a hex string with hex() function.
2. Remove leading 0x from it using replace() function.
3. Break the resulting string into 2 digit values using findall() function from re module.
findall() returns a list of values.
4. Combine the elements of this list with : as separator using python string join() function.

Output of this code will be

Method 2: Using getmac module
Another method to get MAC address in python is using a third party package getmac.
It provides get_mac_address() function which returns MAC address. Example,

import getmac

mac = getmac.get_mac_address()
print(mac)

This prints

You can directly import this function as a shorter alias. This makes invoking it easier when required at multiple places. Example,

from getmac import get_mac_address as gmac

mac = gmac()

As stated earlier, a single machine has multiple NICs installed.
With get_mac_address() function, you can get the MAC address of a hardware using its name.
It also enables you to find MAC address of a particular ip as shown below.

from getmac import get_mac_address as gmac

eth_mac = gmac(interface="eth0")
ip_mac = gmac(ip="127.0.0.1")
host_mac = gmac(hostname="localhost")

Replace the hardware names as per the system on which you are running this program.

To install getmac package using pip, use below command

Hope that article was useful.