How to obtain MAC address of WiFi network interface?

Question

It seems the java.net.NetworkInterface implementation of android does not have a
byte[] getHardwareAddress() method http://developer.android.com/reference/java/net/NetworkInterface.html

I've found several forums of people trying to do this with no definitive answer, I need to get a somewhat cross-device UUID, so I can't rely on phone numbers or in ANDROID_ID (which can be overwritten and which I think depends on the user having a google account) http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings.Secure.html#ANDROID_ID

In linux you can use ifconfig or read from /proc/net/arp and you can easily get the Hardware address.

Is there a file in android that I can read?

There has to be a way to get this address since it's shown in the "Settings > About Phone > Status" of the phone.

Answer 1

There has to be a way to get this address since it's shown in the "Settings > About Phone > Status" of the phone.

Which means, if nothing else, you can go putter around the Android open source code, perhaps using Google Code Search, to figure out where it pulls that from.

Doing a bit of puttering myself, it would appear it is using getMacAddress() from WifiInfo.

Answer 2

http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-bizmagic-networkinfo-zzww.aspx

Answer 3

Late answer, but it can help others with the same "problem".

The answer is really straight forward:

WifiManager wifiMan = (WifiManager) this.getSystemService(
                Context.WIFI_SERVICE);
WifiInfo wifiInf = wifiMan.getConnectionInfo();
String macAddr = wifiInf.getMacAddress();

The above code will get you the MAC address of your device, remember to have wifi enabled when grabbing the address. This code snippet should be used in your Activity.