Using the command line to find the MAC address is also quick, but you need to remember the command line, which for some people is not that easy. This way, I only get what I’m looking for. If you know the network interface name and want to only show this one, you can specify it in the command line: I can now use it to assign a static IP address to this computer or allow the connection if I have a whitelist system on my network.

So, in this example, I know that the MAC address for my wired connection is “00:15:5d:de:19:05”. The other ones are probably useless in most cases. In general, “eth0” will be the wired connection, and “wlan0” the wireless connection. Here is what it looks like on my test virtual machine: Grab your free PDF file with all the commands you need to know on Linux! Find the MAC address with the command line If you are also interested in finding the current IP address on Ubuntu, you can click on the link to read my complete guide. Let’s now learn how to do the same thing from a terminal, or even if you don’t have access to the computer yet. That’s it, that’s pretty quick and easy if you have a desktop interface. It’s indicated as “Hardware address” in this popup, you’ll find it easily.

The MAC address is highlighted on my screenshot.

In this example, I use a wired connection, so it will be slightly different in Wi-Fi.

Click on the wheel next to your active network connection.

Click on the network icon in the top-right corner.

On Ubuntu, for example, you can follow these instructions:

If you have a desktop environment installed on your computer, you don’t really need to use the terminal, you can find it in a few clicks in your network settings. Find the MAC address in the desktop environment In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to find it with the command line, as well as other ways to find it in different situations. A MAC address is represented as a 12-digit hexadecimal number (AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF). This will show all the network interfaces and the corresponding MAC address for each one. The easiest way to find the MAC address on any Linux computer is to use the command “ip link”. But finding it for your computer might not be that easy, that is why I explain how to do this in this tutorial. The MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to each network adapter that you can use to whitelist authorized devices or assign a specific IP address to each device.

How to find your mac address