Get list of 'Friendly interface names' on a Mac (Airport, Ethernet, etc)

macos shell networking ifconfig
Justin picture Justin · Oct 16, 2010 · Viewed 8.9k times · Source

I'm developing an application in RealBASIC, but I need the list of interface names to populate a dropdown box.

Parsing ifconfig didn't work (got eth0, eth1, lo, etc.). I need the name that is displayed in system preferences (Ethernet, Airport, etc.).

Is there a terminal command that I can parse?

Answer

Gordon Davisson picture Gordon Davisson · Oct 17, 2010

networksetup -listallnetworkservices will give you just the names (with an asterisk before disabled ports, in case you want to leave them out). networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder gives some additional info, like what /dev entry (en0, etc) they correspond to. Check the man page for networksetup for even lots more options...

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