How to find the hardware interface type on iOS and Mac OS X?

Question

I am writing code that heuristically determines the likelihood that a service will reside on a network interface. The hardware I'm looking for does not implement SSDP or mDNS, so I have to look for it manually.

The device connects to the network via WiFi, so most likely I will find it through the WiFi interface. However, it is possible that the Mac will be connected to the Wi-Fi bridge via Ethernet, so this can very well be resolved through this.

To avoid unnecessary requests and to be a generally good citizen of the network, I would like to be smart with which interface to try first.

I can get a list of interfaces on my computer without problems, but this is not useful: en0- wired ethernet on my iMac, but WiFi on my Macbook.

Bonus points if this works on iOS as well, although it is rarely possible to use a USB USB adapter with it.

Answer 1

Use frame SystemConfiguration:

import Foundation
import SystemConfiguration

for interface in SCNetworkInterfaceCopyAll() as NSArray {
    if let name = SCNetworkInterfaceGetBSDName(interface as! SCNetworkInterface),
       let type = SCNetworkInterfaceGetInterfaceType(interface as! SCNetworkInterface) {
            print("Interface \(name) is of type \(type)")
    }
}

On my system, this prints:

Interface en0 is of type IEEE80211
Interface en3 is of type Ethernet
Interface en1 is of type Ethernet
Interface en2 is of type Ethernet
Interface bridge0 is of type Bridge

Answer 2

Not much of a Mac developer, but iOSwe can use the class Reachabilityprovided by Apple.

Reachability *reachability = [Reachability reachabilityForInternetConnection];
[reachability startNotifier];

NetworkStatus status = [reachability currentReachabilityStatus];

if(status == NotReachable) 
{
    //No Connection
}
else if (status == ReachableViaWiFi)
{
    //WiFi Connection
}
else if (status == ReachableViaWWAN) 
{
    //Carrier Connection
}

Answer 3

C: ( IP)

@implementation NetworkInterfaces

+(void)display{
    struct ifaddrs *ifap, *ifa;
    struct sockaddr_in *sa;
    char *addr;

    getifaddrs (&ifap);
    for (ifa = ifap; ifa; ifa = ifa->ifa_next) {
        if (ifa->ifa_addr->sa_family==AF_INET) {
            sa = (struct sockaddr_in *) ifa->ifa_addr;
            addr = inet_ntoa(sa->sin_addr);
            printf("Interface: %s\tAddress: %s\n", ifa->ifa_name, addr);
        }
    }

    freeifaddrs(ifap);
}
@end

( AppDelegate):

()

NetworkInterfaces.display()

(ObjC)   [ NetworkInterfaces];