How to get Ethernet address?

der Mouse mouse at thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu
Fri Jun 7 00:11:55 AEST 1991


In article <897 at bcstec.boeing.com>, hardiman at bcstec.boeing.com (Paul Hardiman) writes:

> How does one programmaticcaly ascertain the machine address (the 6
> byte code of the communications card) of a connected peer.

In general one cannot.  The remote machine may not even *have* an
Ethernet address; it may be connected by a SLIP line or a fiber-optic
network or any of a zillion other possibilities.

There isn't even any portable way to obtain the *local* Ethernet
address; I doubt there's even a portable way to tell whether the local
machine *has* an Ethernet address.

Why do you care?  I suspect you're trying to solve the wrong problem.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse at larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu



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