How to get mac address of client machine in PHP

Question

In order to know the answer to this problem first, we need to know what is Mac and IP address.

What is a MAC address, and what does it mean? The term MAC stands for "Media Access Control," and it is a 48-bit physical address that every networking device has. The data-link layer uses the MAC address to transport a data packet from source to destination. 

In this article, we will discuss about how to get the IP address of the connected client in PHP. PHP has a superglobal variable ie $_SERVER, which contains information about the header, path, and script locations. We will see how  ‘REMOTE_ADDR’ returns the client’s IP address which is the key to $_SERVER variable.

Photo by Rachel Vine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Solution 1: Using echo GetMAC() function
2. Solution 2: Using GetClientMac() function
3. Solution 3:
4. Solution 4: Using the command
5. Solution 5: Getting client device's ip and mac address
6. Solution 6: Checking user agent OS Linux or windows . If OS windows then use this code
7. If OS is Linux Ubuntu or Linux then use this code
8. Solution 7: For OS X
9. Conclusion

Solution 1: Using echo GetMAC() function

    echo GetMAC();

    function GetMAC(){
        ob_start();
        system('getmac');
        $Content = ob_get_contents();
        ob_clean();
        return substr($Content, strpos($Content,'\')-20, 17);
    }

Solution 2: Using GetClientMac() function

    function GetClientMac(){
        $macAddr=false;
        $arp=`arp -n`;
        $lines=explode("\n", $arp);

        foreach($lines as $line){
            $cols=preg_split('/\s+/', trim($line));

            if ($cols[0]==$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']){
                $macAddr=$cols[2];
            }
        }

        return $macAddr;
    }

Solution 3:

    <!--?php
    $string=exec('getmac');
    $mac=substr($string, 0, 17); 
    echo $mac;
    ?-->

Slution 4: Using the command

    cmd ipconfig /all

    <!--?php
    ob_start();
    system('ipconfig /all');
    $mycom=ob_get_contents();
    ob_clean();
    $findme = 'physique';
    $pmac = strpos($mycom, $findme);
    $mac=substr($mycom,($pmac+33),17);
    echo $mac;
    ?-->

Solution 5: Getting client device's ip and mac address

    {

        if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP']))
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
        else if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
        else if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED']))
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED'];
        else if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR']))
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR'];
        else if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED']))
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED'];
        else if(isset($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']))
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
        else
            $ipaddress = 'UNKNOWN';

        $macCommandString   =   "arp " . $ipaddress . " | awk 'BEGIN{ i=1; } { i++; if(i==3) print $3 }'";

        $mac = exec($macCommandString);

        return ['ip' => $ipaddress, 'mac' => $mac];
    }

Solution 6: Checking user agent OS Linux or windows . If OS windows then use this code

    public function win_os(){ 
        ob_start();
        system('ipconfig-a');
        $mycom=ob_get_contents(); // Capture the output into a variable
        ob_clean(); // Clean (erase) the output buffer
        $findme = "Physical";
        $pmac = strpos($mycom, $findme); // Find the position of Physical text
        $mac=substr($mycom,($pmac+36),17); // Get Physical Address

        return $mac;
    }

If OS is Linux Ubuntu or Linux then use this code

    public function unix_os(){
        ob_start();
        system('ifconfig -a');
        $mycom = ob_get_contents(); // Capture the output into a variable
        ob_clean(); // Clean (erase) the output buffer
        $findme = "Physical";
        //Find the position of Physical text 
        $pmac = strpos($mycom, $findme); 
        $mac = substr($mycom, ($pmac + 37), 18);

        return $mac;
        }

Solution 7: For OS X

    //Simple & effective way to get client mac address
    // Turn on output buffering
    ob_start();
    //Get the ipconfig details using system commond
    system('ipconfig /all');

    // Capture the output into a variable

        $mycom=ob_get_contents();

    // Clean (erase) the output buffer

        ob_clean();

    $findme = "Physical";
    //Search the "Physical" | Find the position of Physical text
    $pmac = strpos($mycom, $findme);

    // Get Physical Address
    $mac=substr($mycom,($pmac+36),17);
    //Display Mac Address
    echo $mac;

Conclusion:

In this article, we discussed how to use PHP's built-in superglobal variable $_SERVER to get the user's IP address in the above code.

I believe you understand how we can obtain clients' MAC and IP addresses, as well as their machine IDs.

Hope it helped.