How to get my MAC Address programmatically with Ruby

Question

I am writing a script that needs to know what the MAC address of the host computer is.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Answer 1

I don't think there is any Ruby built-in function to retrieve that address; you'll likely have to make a system call to list the value (e.g. ifconfig on UNIX, ipconfig /all on Win32) and parse the output as necessary.

Something like this (untested pseudocode):

def mac_address
  platform = RUBY_PLATFORM.downcase
  output = `#{(platform =~ /win32/) ? 'ipconfig /all' : 'ifconfig'}`
  case platform
    when /darwin/
      $1 if output =~ /en1.*?(([A-F0-9]{2}:){5}[A-F0-9]{2})/im
    when /win32/
      $1 if output =~ /Physical Address.*?(([A-F0-9]{2}-){5}[A-F0-9]{2})/im
    # Cases for other platforms...
    else nil
  end
end

Answer 2

There is a gem called macaddr that does this, but basically it's parsing the output of the system's ifconfig. You can see the thread when it was being developed at http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/113956