Best way to extract MAC address from ifconfig's output?

Question

What is the best way to extract the MAC address from ifconfig\'s output?

Sample output:

bash-3.00# ifconfig eth0        
eth0      Link          


        

Answer 1

For Ubuntu/Debian

ifconfig | grep HW | awk '{print $5}'

For Rhat or CentOs try

ip add | grep link/ether | awk '{print $2}'