Media access control (MAC) addresses play an important role in local-area networks. They also pack a lot of information into 48-bit hexadecimal strings!

The macaddress library makes it easy to evaluate the properties of MAC addresses and the extended identifiers of which they are subclasses.

macaddress is available on GitHub at https://github.com/critical-path/macaddress-rb.

To install macaddress with test-related dependencies, run the following commands from your shell.

[user@host ~]$ git clone git@github.com:critical-path/macaddress-rb.git
[user@host ~]$ cd macaddress-rb
[user@host macaddress-rb]$ bundle install --with=development

To install macaddress without test-related dependencies, run the following commands from your shell.

[user@host ~]$ git clone git@github.com:critical-path/macaddress-rb.git
[user@host ~]$ cd macaddress-rb
[user@host macaddress-rb]$ bundle install

While macaddress contains multiple classes, the only one with which you need to interact directly is MediaAccessControlAddress.

Require macaddress.

irb(main)001:0> require "macaddress"
=> true

Instantiate MediaAccessControlAddress by passing in a MAC address in plain, hyphen, colon, or dot notation.

irb(main)002:0> mac = MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress.new("a0b1c2d3e4f5")
=> #<MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress:0x00000002787628 @original="a0b1c2d3e4f5">

irb(main)002:0> mac = MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress.new("a0-b1-c2-d3-e4-f5")
=> #<MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress:0x00000002787628 @original="a0-b1-c2-d3-e4-f5">

irb(main)002:0> mac = MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress.new("a0:b1:c2:d3:e4:f5")
=> #<MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress:0x00000002787628 @original="a0:b1:c2:d3:e4:f5">

irb(main)002:0> mac = MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress.new("a0b1.c2d3.e4f5")
=> #<MACAddress::MediaAccessControlAddress:0x00000002787628 @original="a0b1.c2d3.e4f5">

To determine whether the MAC address is a broadcast, a multicast (layer-two), or a unicast address, call the broadcast?, multicast?, and unicast? methods.

irb(main)003:0> mac.broadcast?
=> false

irb(main)004:0> mac.multicast?
=> false

irb(main)005:0> mac.unicast?
=> true

To determine whether the MAC address is a universally-administered address (UAA) or a locally-administered address (LAA), call the uaa? and laa? methods.

irb(main)006:0> mac.uaa?
=> true

irb(main)007:0> mac.laa?
=> true

To work with the MAC address's octets, call the octets method, which returns six Octet objects.

irb(main)008:0> mac.octets
=> [#<Octet::Octet:0x000000027b76e8 @original="a0">, #<Octet::Octet:0x000000027b7580 @original="b1">, #<Octet::Octet:0x000000027b7418 @original="c2">, #<Octet::Octet:0x000000027b72b0 @original="d3">, #<Octet::Octet:0x000000027b7148 @original="e4">, #<Octet::Octet:0x000000027b6fe0 @original="f5">]

To determine whether the MAC address is an extended unique identifier (EUI), an extended local identifier (ELI), or unknown, call the type? method.

irb(main)009:0> mac.type?
=> "unique"

To determine whether the MAC address has an organizationally-unique identifier (OUI) or a company ID (CID), call the oui? and cid? methods.

irb(main)010:0> mac.oui?
=> true

irb(main)011:0> mac.cid?
=> false

To view the decimal equivalent of the MAC address, call the decimal method.

irb(main)0:12:0> mac.decimal
=> 176685338322165 

To view the binary equivalent of the MAC address, call the binary and reverse_binary methods. With binary, the most-significant digit of each octet appears first. With reverse_binary, the least-significant digit of each octet appears first.

irb(main)013:0> mac.binary
=> "101000001011000111000010110100111110010011110101"

irb(main)014:0> mac.reverse_binary
=> "000001011000110101000011110010110010011110101111"

To return the MAC address's two "fragments," call the to_fragments method. For an EUI, this means the 24-bit OUI as the first fragment and the remaining interface-specific bits as the second fragment. For an ELI, this means the 24-bit CID as the first fragment and the remaining interface-specific bits as the second fragment.

irb(main)015:0> mac.to_fragments
=> ["a0b1c2", "d3e4f5"]

To return the MAC address in different notations, call the to_plain_notation, to_hyphen_notation, to_colon_notation, and to_dot_notation methods.

irb(main)016:0> mac.to_plain_notation
=> "a0b1c2d3e4f5"

irb(main)017:0> mac.to_hyphen_notation
=> "a0-b1-c2-d3-e4-f5"

irb(main)018:0> mac.to_colon_notation
=> "a0:b1:c2:d3:e4:f5"

irb(main)019:0> mac.to_dot_notation
=> "a0b1.c2d3.e4f5"

To conduct testing, run the following command from your shell.

[user@host macaddress-rb]$ bundle exec rake test

To build the documentation for macaddress, run the following command from your shell.

[user@host macaddress-rb]$ bundle exec rake yard