How can I programmatically get the MAC address of

Question

Does anyone know how to programmatically get an iPhone's MAC address and IP address?

Answer 1

It's not possible anymore on devices running iOS 7.0 or later, thus unavailable to get MAC address in Swift.

As Apple stated:

In iOS 7 and later, if you ask for the MAC address of an iOS device, the system returns the value 02:00:00:00:00:00. If you need to identify the device, use the identifierForVendor property of UIDevice instead. (Apps that need an identifier for their own advertising purposes should consider using the advertisingIdentifier property of ASIdentifierManager instead.)

Answer 2

@Grantland This "pretty clean solution" looks similar to my own improvement over iPhoneDeveloperTips solution.

You can see my step here: https://gist.github.com/1409855/

/* Original source code courtesy John from iOSDeveloperTips.com */

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/sysctl.h>
#include <net/if.h>
#include <net/if_dl.h>

+ (NSString *)getMacAddress
{
    int                 mgmtInfoBase[6];
    char                *msgBuffer = NULL;
    NSString            *errorFlag = NULL;
    size_t              length;

    // Setup the management Information Base (mib)
    mgmtInfoBase[0] = CTL_NET;        // Request network subsystem
    mgmtInfoBase[1] = AF_ROUTE;       // Routing table info
    mgmtInfoBase[2] = 0;              
    mgmtInfoBase[3] = AF_LINK;        // Request link layer information
    mgmtInfoBase[4] = NET_RT_IFLIST;  // Request all configured interfaces

    // With all configured interfaces requested, get handle index
    if ((mgmtInfoBase[5] = if_nametoindex("en0")) == 0) 
        errorFlag = @"if_nametoindex failure";
    // Get the size of the data available (store in len)
    else if (sysctl(mgmtInfoBase, 6, NULL, &length, NULL, 0) < 0) 
        errorFlag = @"sysctl mgmtInfoBase failure";
    // Alloc memory based on above call
    else if ((msgBuffer = malloc(length)) == NULL)
        errorFlag = @"buffer allocation failure";
    // Get system information, store in buffer
    else if (sysctl(mgmtInfoBase, 6, msgBuffer, &length, NULL, 0) < 0)
    {
        free(msgBuffer);
        errorFlag = @"sysctl msgBuffer failure";
    }
    else
    {
        // Map msgbuffer to interface message structure
        struct if_msghdr *interfaceMsgStruct = (struct if_msghdr *) msgBuffer;

        // Map to link-level socket structure
        struct sockaddr_dl *socketStruct = (struct sockaddr_dl *) (interfaceMsgStruct + 1);

        // Copy link layer address data in socket structure to an array
        unsigned char macAddress[6];
        memcpy(&macAddress, socketStruct->sdl_data + socketStruct->sdl_nlen, 6);

        // Read from char array into a string object, into traditional Mac address format
        NSString *macAddressString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%02X:%02X:%02X:%02X:%02X:%02X",
                                      macAddress[0], macAddress[1], macAddress[2], macAddress[3], macAddress[4], macAddress[5]];
        NSLog(@"Mac Address: %@", macAddressString);

        // Release the buffer memory
        free(msgBuffer);

        return macAddressString;
    }

    // Error...
    NSLog(@"Error: %@", errorFlag);

    return nil;
}

Answer 3

I wanted something to return the address regardless of whether or not wifi was enabled, so the chosen solution didn't work for me. I used another call I found on some forum after some tweaking. I ended up with the following (excuse my rusty C ) :

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <net/if_dl.h>
#include <ifaddrs.h>


char*  getMacAddress(char* macAddress, char* ifName) {

int  success;
struct ifaddrs * addrs;
struct ifaddrs * cursor;
const struct sockaddr_dl * dlAddr;
const unsigned char* base;
int i;

success = getifaddrs(&addrs) == 0;
if (success) {
    cursor = addrs;
    while (cursor != 0) {
        if ( (cursor->ifa_addr->sa_family == AF_LINK)
            && (((const struct sockaddr_dl *) cursor->ifa_addr)->sdl_type == IFT_ETHER) && strcmp(ifName,  cursor->ifa_name)==0 ) {
            dlAddr = (const struct sockaddr_dl *) cursor->ifa_addr;
            base = (const unsigned char*) &dlAddr->sdl_data[dlAddr->sdl_nlen];
            strcpy(macAddress, ""); 
            for (i = 0; i < dlAddr->sdl_alen; i++) {
                if (i != 0) {
                    strcat(macAddress, ":");
                }
                char partialAddr[3];
                sprintf(partialAddr, "%02X", base[i]);
                strcat(macAddress, partialAddr);

            }
        }
        cursor = cursor->ifa_next;
    }

    freeifaddrs(addrs);
}    
return macAddress;
}

And then I would call it asking for en0, as follows:

char* macAddressString= (char*)malloc(18);
NSString* macAddress= [[NSString alloc] initWithCString:getMacAddress(macAddressString, "en0")
                                              encoding:NSMacOSRomanStringEncoding];
free(macAddressString);

Answer 4

To create a uniqueString based on unique identifier of device in iOS 6:

#import <AdSupport/ASIdentifierManager.h>

NSString *uniqueString = [[[ASIdentifierManager sharedManager] advertisingIdentifier] UUIDString];
NSLog(@"uniqueString: %@", uniqueString);

Answer 5

Update: this will not work on iOS 7. You should use ASIdentifierManager.

---

More clean solution on MobileDeveloperTips website:

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/sysctl.h>
#include <net/if.h>
#include <net/if_dl.h>

...

- (NSString *)getMacAddress
{
  int                 mgmtInfoBase[6];
  char                *msgBuffer = NULL;
  size_t              length;
  unsigned char       macAddress[6];
  struct if_msghdr    *interfaceMsgStruct;
  struct sockaddr_dl  *socketStruct;
  NSString            *errorFlag = NULL;

  // Setup the management Information Base (mib)
  mgmtInfoBase[0] = CTL_NET;        // Request network subsystem
  mgmtInfoBase[1] = AF_ROUTE;       // Routing table info
  mgmtInfoBase[2] = 0;              
  mgmtInfoBase[3] = AF_LINK;        // Request link layer information
  mgmtInfoBase[4] = NET_RT_IFLIST;  // Request all configured interfaces

  // With all configured interfaces requested, get handle index
  if ((mgmtInfoBase[5] = if_nametoindex("en0")) == 0) 
    errorFlag = @"if_nametoindex failure";
  else
  {
    // Get the size of the data available (store in len)
    if (sysctl(mgmtInfoBase, 6, NULL, &length, NULL, 0) < 0) 
      errorFlag = @"sysctl mgmtInfoBase failure";
    else
    {
      // Alloc memory based on above call
      if ((msgBuffer = malloc(length)) == NULL)
        errorFlag = @"buffer allocation failure";
      else
      {
        // Get system information, store in buffer
        if (sysctl(mgmtInfoBase, 6, msgBuffer, &length, NULL, 0) < 0)
          errorFlag = @"sysctl msgBuffer failure";
      }
    }
  }

  // Befor going any further...
  if (errorFlag != NULL)
  {
    NSLog(@"Error: %@", errorFlag);
    return errorFlag;
  }

  // Map msgbuffer to interface message structure
  interfaceMsgStruct = (struct if_msghdr *) msgBuffer;

  // Map to link-level socket structure
  socketStruct = (struct sockaddr_dl *) (interfaceMsgStruct + 1);

  // Copy link layer address data in socket structure to an array
  memcpy(&macAddress, socketStruct->sdl_data + socketStruct->sdl_nlen, 6);

  // Read from char array into a string object, into traditional Mac address format
  NSString *macAddressString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%02X:%02X:%02X:%02X:%02X:%02X", 
                                macAddress[0], macAddress[1], macAddress[2], 
                                macAddress[3], macAddress[4], macAddress[5]];
  NSLog(@"Mac Address: %@", macAddressString);

  // Release the buffer memory
  free(msgBuffer);

  return macAddressString;
}

Answer 6

#import <sys/socket.h>
#import <net/if_dl.h>
#import <ifaddrs.h>
#import <sys/xattr.h>
#define IFT_ETHER 0x6

...

- (NSString*)macAddress
{
    NSString* result = nil;

    char* macAddressString = (char*)malloc(18);
    if (macAddressString != NULL)
    {
        strcpy(macAddressString, "");

        struct ifaddrs* addrs = NULL;
        struct ifaddrs* cursor;

        if (getifaddrs(&addrs) == 0)
        {
            cursor = addrs;

            while (cursor != NULL)
            {
                if ((cursor->ifa_addr->sa_family == AF_LINK) && (((const struct sockaddr_dl*)cursor->ifa_addr)->sdl_type == IFT_ETHER) && strcmp("en0", cursor->ifa_name) == 0)
                {
                    const struct sockaddr_dl* dlAddr = (const struct sockaddr_dl*) cursor->ifa_addr;
                    const unsigned char* base = (const unsigned char*)&dlAddr->sdl_data[dlAddr->sdl_nlen];

                    for (NSInteger index = 0; index < dlAddr->sdl_alen; index++)
                    {
                        char partialAddr[3];

                        sprintf(partialAddr, "%02X", base[index]);
                        strcat(macAddressString, partialAddr);
                    }
                }

                cursor = cursor->ifa_next;
            }

        }

        result = [[[NSString alloc] initWithUTF8String:macAddressString] autorelease];

        free(macAddressString);
    }

    return result;
}