It can sometimes be useful to obtain the MAC address of your Raspberry Pi's network interfaces. The 'Media Access Control' address is a unique identifier given to all networked devices. The address is different for all Pi's and can be used to identify your device. Think of it as a digital fingerprint. There is a separate MAC address for Ethernet and WiFi interfaces.
There are a number of ways to identify them using the command line or using Python code. Below are some quick examples you can use to find the MAC address.
Connect to your Raspberry Pi from a Mac Using Ethernet. This is a step by step guide to connecting your Raspberry Pi with your Mac. First find your Network Preferences. In the upper right hand corner of your screen, click on the wifi icon. Setup your Ethernet Preferences.
Retropie
From the Command Line
To find the MAC address from the command line you need to know the name of the interface. The Ethernet interface used to be called 'eth0' but in newer versions of Raspbian it may be 'enx########' where ######## is the MAC address. This means the Ethernet interface name is unique for every Pi. The first WiFi interfaces is still named 'wlan0'.
You can find the interface names by using :
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The name will be one of the displayed sub-directories alongside 'lo'.
You can then use the following command :
Raspberry Pi Macro
or you can type :
You should swap #### for the interface name.
This will result in output similar to :
or
The 'HWaddr' or 'ether' value is the MAC address. In this example 'c7:35:ce:fd:8e:a1'
Finding the Ethernet Interface Name Using Python
The names used for the Ethernet and wireless interface on the current version of Raspbian are 'eth0' and 'wlan0'.
In some older iterations of Raspbian these names were based on the MAC address of the interface using what is known as 'predictable interface names'. For this reason I created a function to determine the name regardless of the scheme being used :
It looks at the sub-directories of /sys/class/net/ and finds either 'eth0' or the name starting with 'enx'.
In your script you could use this function to read the interface name into a variable :
Finding the MAC Address Using Python
The following Python function can be used to obtain the MAC address of your Raspberry Pi :
This function can be called using the following line :
Or if you have a WiFi connection :
Finally combining both functions would give you ability to find the Ethernet interface name and then retrieve the address without worrying about what version of Raspbian was being used:
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If you have a computer that is not running Linux then you faced a problem, you cannot read the partition rootfs SD cards from your Raspberry Pi from your PC!
We will see how you can read Linux partitions, and therefore rootfs, from a Windows or Mac OS system.
The material used
To be able to read Linux partitions from Windows or Mac, it's all about software. To follow this tutorial you will therefore only need:
- A PC capable of reading SD cards, or a USB / MicroSD adapter.
Why can't I read rootfs from Windows or Mac?
The big problem with computers, contrary to what one might think, is not the lack of standards. Rather, it is their overabundance …
In our case the score rootfs uses a named format ext4 which is a Linux format. The problem is, Windows and Mac use different standards for their file systems. Consequently, it is not possible to read systems ext4 from Windows or Mac.
To be able to read our score rootfs we will therefore have to find a way to read ext4 from Mac and Windows.
Read Linux partitions from Windows and Mac OS.
Obviously, the easiest way to read Linux partitions would be to install Linux on your machine or make a bootable USB stick with a temporary system. There is, however, another solution that does not require you to restart your PC every time.
For this, we will install software capable of reading a Linux file system and mounting it on a Windows or Mac OS file system. There are several software programs that can do this, but personally I use Paragon Linux Filesystems from Parangon Software, especially since it is available for Windows and Mac and has a free version.
You will therefore need to download and install this software, here for Windows and here for Mac OS.
What version is mac os x 10 7 5. All you have to do is launch the software, click on your SD card icon and on 'Mount'.
Your score rootfs is now accessible from the file explorer!
