How to Check or Find MAC Address on Linux Mint? There are two methods to find your current MAC Address: First you can know MAC Address using ifconfig; Second you can find mac address linux without ifconfig.
What is MAC Adress ?
If you are connected to the network (both for local or internet) using cable you certainly have a device called NIC (Network Interface Card). And if you are connected using Wi-Fi device you also have the Wi-Fi device.
Every NIC has a hardware address that’s known as a MAC, for Media Access Control. Where IP addresses are associated with TCP/IP (networking software), MAC addresses are linked to the hardware of network adapters.
A MAC address is given to a network adapter when it is manufactured. It is hardwired or hard-coded onto your computer’s network interface card (NIC) and is unique to it. Something called the ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) translates an IP address into a MAC address. The ARP is like a passport that takes data from an IP address through an actual piece of computer hardware.
Once again, that’s hardware and software working together, IP addresses and MAC addresses working together.
How to Check / Find MAC Address on Linux Mint
The original MAC address can be found using the same technique the network card driver does -but you can find current MAC address using Terminal as follow:
Find MAC Address Using IFCONFIG
ifconfig is a small tool for Linux designed to show the current MAC address that you are using now. This tool is available by default on your system, and you can know your current MAC address by typing command ifconfig -a
You may have a result like this :
Explanation :
- The eth0 is NIC (Network Interface Card) when your computer connected to a local network using a RJ-45 connector cable type. For my result above is inactive because i am using a Wi-Fi connection.
- The wlan0 show the MAC address used by Wi-Fi device. This is my current MAC address and you can show there is number n RX packets. Now we will check MAC address without ifconfig.
Find MAC Address Using ETHTOOL
ethtool is an alternative Linux apps for ifconfig, and you need to install it first to use.
How to install ethtool? You only need open your Terminal and type sudo apt-get install ethtool
How to run ethtool to know MAC address? You have to decide where device that MAC address number you want to know; Is your NIC card or Wi-Fi device ?
Open your Terminal and type ethtool -eth0 in order to know your MAC number on your NIC card
Or type ethtool -wlan0 in order to know the MAC address for the Wi-Fi device. That is very simple! Try to see that picture above you will see the same result of the MAC address from different MAC retrieval method.
