Java Program to Get System MAC Address of Windows and Linux Machine

Difficulty Level : Easy
Last Updated : 04 Jan, 2021

Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique hexadecimal identifier assigned to a Network Interface Controller (NIC) to be used as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, MAC addresses utilized in the medium access control protocol sublayer of the data link layer. As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens, colons, or without a separator.

MAC addresses are primarily assigned by device manufacturers and therefore often mentioned as the burned-in address, or as an Ethernet hardware address, hardware address, or physical address.

mac or physical address

Example 1

Java

// Java program to access the MAC address of the 
// localhost machine 
import java.net.InetAddress; 
import java.net.NetworkInterface; 
import java.net.SocketException; 
import java.net.UnknownHostException; 
import java.util.Enumeration; 
public class MACAddress { 
  
    // method to get the MAC Address 
    void getMAC(InetAddress addr) throws SocketException 
    { 
        // create a variable of type NetworkInterface and 
        // assign it with the value returned by the 
        // getByInetAddress() method 
        NetworkInterface iface 
            = NetworkInterface.getByInetAddress(addr); 
  
        // create a byte array and store the value returned 
        // by the NetworkInterface.getHardwareAddress() 
        // method 
        byte[] mac = iface.getHardwareAddress(); 
        
        // convert the obtained byte array into a printable 
        // String 
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 
        for (int i = 0; i < mac.length; i++) { 
            sb.append(String.format( 
                "%02X%s", mac[i], 
                (i < mac.length - 1) ? "-" : "")); 
        } 
        
        // print the final String containing the MAC Address 
        System.out.println(sb.toString()); 
    } 
  
    // Driver method 
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception 
    { 
        // a variable of type InetAddress to store the 
        // address of the local host 
        InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getLocalHost(); 
        
        // instantiate the MACAddress class 
        MACAddress obj = new MACAddress(); 
        System.out.print("MAC Address of the system : "); 
        
        // call the getMAC() method on the current object 
        // passing the localhost address as the parameter 
        obj.getMAC(addr); 
    } 
}

Output

physical or mac address

Example 2(When the device has more than one MAC address)

Java

// Java program to access all the MAC addresses of the 
// localhost machine 
  
import java.net.InetAddress; 
import java.net.NetworkInterface; 
import java.net.SocketException; 
import java.net.UnknownHostException; 
import java.util.Enumeration; 
public class MACAddress { 
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception 
    { 
        // instantiate the MACAddress class 
        MACAddress obj = new MACAddress(); 
        
        // call the getMAC() method on the current object 
        // passing the localhost address as the parameter 
        obj.getMAC(); 
    } 
  
    // method to get the MAC addresses of the 
    // localhost machine 
    void getMAC() 
    { 
        try { 
            
            // create an Enumeration of type 
            // NetworkInterface and store the values 
            // returned by 
            // NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces() 
            // method 
            Enumeration<NetworkInterface> networks 
                = NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces(); 
            
            // for every network in the networks Enumeration 
            while (networks.hasMoreElements()) { 
                NetworkInterface network 
                    = networks.nextElement(); 
                
                // call getHardwareAddress() method on each 
                // network and store the returned value in a 
                // byte array 
                byte[] mac = network.getHardwareAddress(); 
  
                if (mac != null) { 
                    System.out.print( 
                        "Current MAC address : "); 
                    
                    // convert the obtained byte array into 
                    // a printable String 
                    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 
                    for (int i = 0; i < mac.length; i++) { 
                        sb.append(String.format( 
                            "%02X%s", mac[i], 
                            (i < mac.length - 1) ? "-"
                                                 : "")); 
                    } 
                    
                    // print the final String containing the 
                    // MAC Address 
                    System.out.println(sb.toString()); 
                } 
            } 
        } 
        catch (SocketException e) { 
            e.printStackTrace(); 
        } 
    } 
}

Output

multiple mac addresses

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