Get remote MAC address using Python and Linux

python linux networking mac-address

22,455

Solution 1

Use these commands:

arp -n <IP Address>|awk '/<ip address>/ {print $3}'

for example, if you want mac address of 192.168.10.1:

#arp -n 192.168.10.1|awk '/192.168.10.1/ {print $3}'
#00:0c:29:68:8f:a4

Solution 2

You can try running command arp -a

Here is few links about Mac Address grabbing (not tested)

In Linux/Unix, arping,

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-pythocli/

In Windows, using IP Helper API through ctypes

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/347812/

Solution 3

arp entries might never be right, I tried to ping a host several times but arp -a would not give me it's mac/ethernet address. (No worry with the windows code from active state BTW)

The reliable way on Linux (and *nix) is to use arping or scappy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arping) and then parse the output. Here's the code I used. You have to be root or use sudo to run arping.

cmd = '/sbin/arping -c 1 ' + remotehost       

p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)                               
output, errors = p.communicate()                                                            
if output is not None :                                                                     
    mac_addr = re.findall(r'(\[.*\])', output)[0].replace('[', '').replace(']', '')

Solution 4

If you just want to query the OS' arp cache, reasonably recent linux kernels support this:

import os, sys

host = sys.argv[1]

# ping is optional (sends a WHO_HAS request)
os.popen('ping -c 1 %s' % host)

# grep with a space at the end of IP address to make sure you get a single line
fields = os.popen('grep "%s " /proc/net/arp' % host).read().split()
if len(fields) == 6 and fields[3] != "00:00:00:00:00:00":
    print fields[3]
else:
    print 'no response from', host

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myk_raniu

Graduated from Electronic Engineering in University College Cork. 6 Years Experience Software testing and Script Coding at Xilinx Ireland Learning Data Science Techniques and R Studio

Updated on May 05, 2020

Comments

myk_raniu about 4 years

How do I get the MAC address of a remote host on my LAN? I'm using Python and Linux.
C. K. Young over 14 years

Or, arp -n $IP, to filter to just the desired IP address.
YOU over 14 years

Thanks, In Windows, arp -a $IP just a note.
Nick Bastin over 14 years

Keep in mind that this won't send a WHO_HAS message on the network - the address has to have been seen by your machine already, which it might not be if you have a large network (also old entries can get deleted if the cache gets too large).
YOU over 14 years

Yes, Correct, for that case, may be should try to do something first like pinging, and find out arp cache.
myk_raniu over 14 years

So you reckon manualy execute the ping and arp commands using os.popen? There isn't any python modules to do this?
YOU over 14 years

I dont see arp on standard module
Andrew McGregor over 14 years

You can, of course, implement ARP yourself (it's RFC 826), build an arping style packet, open a raw socket, and send it yourself. But why do all the work to implement that yourself when you can just use the system component to do it?
Nightforce2 over 6 years

So in a sense. This example is incomplete.
bitinerant over 5 years

At least on Ubuntu 18.04, you do not have to be root to run arping.