Find your IP or MAC address

A MAC address is a device's wireless or wired (Ethernet) physical address. It is assigned by the manufacturer and will consist of 12 characters, most often displayed with a colon or hyphen separating every two digits (an octet). An example would be 01:a2:b3:c4:d5:e6.

An IP address is a unique identifier for your device, assigned by a network once you connect successfully. It consists of four parts separated by dots. An example would be 141.219.xxx.xxx, with the x's being numbers.

General instructions

The MAC address will be listed in the network settings for your device. The instructions will vary for obtaining the wired or wireless MAC device. If it is a university-owned computer, it may be listed on the computer label, listed next to HW Address.

Find your IP Address is by navigating to google.com, then entering: what is my IP address. Google will display your IP address as the top search result. 

Specific operating systems

Windows

1. Select the Start menu and type: cmd. Select the cmd application in the Start menu panel.
2. A command line window will open. Type: ipconfig /all and press Enter.
   • MAC address
     • The wired physical address will be listed under Ethernet adapter Ethernet: Physical Address.
     • The wireless physical address will be listed under Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi: Physical Address.
   • IP address: The IP address will be listed next to IPv4 Address under either Ethernet adapter Ethernet:or Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi: depending on how your device is connected.

Mac

1. Select the Apple icon in the top left-hand corner of the screen in the Menu Bar.
2. In System Preferences, select the Network icon.
3. In the Network preference pane, select Ethernet for a wired connection or Wi-Fi for a wireless connection.
   • MAC address
     • Select Ethernet --> Advanced --> Hardware for the wired physical address.
     • Select Wi-Fi --> Advanced --> Hardware for the wireless physical address.
   • IP address: Select Ethernet or Wi-Fi to find the IP Address listed under Status, depending on how your device is connected.

Linux

1. Open a terminal. You can find this in your list of applications or by searching for terminal.
2. Enter the command: ifconfig -a to find the list of wired and wireless physical MAC addresses listed by the adapter name. The commands and adapter names vary. which could be HWaddr, ether, etc. Note that your Linux distribution may vary with the command and how it lists the MAC address. ip addr is another command that you could use but you will need to find out the adapter names and the syntax based on your distribution.
3. Enter the command: ip addr show to find the IP address for each device listed after inet (most likely after device eth0.