How Can I Get the MAC and IP Addresses of Connected Clients Using PHP?

Obtaining MAC and IP Addresses of Connected Clients in PHP

This article aims to assist developers in retrieving the MAC and IP addresses of clients connected to their PHP scripts. Understanding how to acquire this information is crucial for various network-related applications.

Server IP Address

Retrieving the server's IP address is straightforward in PHP using $_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'].

Server MAC Address

Obtaining the server's MAC address is not a native PHP feature. However, one approach is to parse the output of external commands like netstat -ie in Linux or ipconfig /all in Windows.

Client IP Address

The client's IP address is readily available through $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'].

Client MAC Address

Unfortunately, PHP does not provide a direct means of retrieving the client's MAC address. Nevertheless, it is possible under one specific condition: if the client is on the same Ethernet segment as the server. In such cases, you can parse the output of arp -n (Linux) or arp -a (Windows).

Retrieving External Command Output

Here's an example of using backticks to retrieve the external command output:

$ipAddress = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$macAddr = false;

$arp = `arp -a $ipAddress`;
$lines = explode("\n", $arp);

foreach ($lines as $line) {
   $cols = preg_split('/\s+/', trim($line));
   if ($cols[0] == $ipAddress) {
       $macAddr = $cols[1];
   }
}

Limitations and Considerations

Be aware that if the client is not on a local network, you cannot determine its MAC address without additional client-side mechanisms to provide it.

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