Mac Address Goodies

Tired of paying a subscription service to access an API to resolve MAC address data? Just resolving locally and maintaining your own database with this project is faster, cheaper (FREE!), and more secure.

In just 2 easy steps you'll be up and running in no time! Complete both of the below steps to get your local mac address lookup set up.

Step 1, download the mac lookup script and extract the contents.
The script can be used interactively or simply by using the commmand "oui_search XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX" for quicker scripted searches. It accepts all standard mac address formats: XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX, XXXX-XXXX-XXXX, XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX, XXXX:XXXX:XXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXX, etc.

Step 2, choose the lookup table you need depending on the level of detail you require and place it into the script directory you extracted in step 1. The lookup tables here are synced regularly with the IEEE's daily updates, so remember to keep your files up to date for the latest and most accurate data.

Master.txt:
Complete record of all IEEE-registered OUI blocks reformatted for easier script use. There's also an HTML version of the Master.txt available for quick online reference, but you still need to download the Master.txt to work with the lookup script.

OR

Simplified.txt:
Same as master.txt, but block type and vendor address columns removed.
NOTE: If you decide to use the simplified.txt, set the SIMPLE variable at the top of the script to 1.
To edit the script, simply right-click the OUI_Search.cmd and select "Edit."

Unlike 99.9% of the other OUI lookups out there, the master.txt and simplified.txt include all of the IEEE blocks, where even the majority of professional premium-grade products on the market only include the single MA-L block. The difference is that the MA-L block is the largest and contains the most common and well-known vendors that require the most number of unique MAC addresseses, where each registry entry can allocate up to 16,777,215 unique MAC addresses. Each entry in the MA-M block can allocate 1,048,575 unique MAC addresses and each entry in the MA-S block can allocate only 4,095 unique MAC addresses. Although they are smaller in number and mostly neglected OUIs, MA-M and MA-S have also been included for completeness.

What these files do not include are separately designated virtual machine OUIs. In the past including virtual machine OUIs were useful to distinguish previously undocumented OUIs. However, in modern times these virtual machine OUIs are now documented and registered with the IEEE by their controlling authorities. For example, the VirtualBox virtual NICs are registered to Oracle Corporation, the VMWare virtual NICs are registered to VMware, Inc., the Xen virtual NICs are registered to Xensource, Inc., the Parallels virtual NICs are registered to Parallels, Inc., and all of the various virtual NICs you can create in Windows are all registered to Microsoft Corporation. Since all of these and more are registered OUIs, there is no longer a need to curate an elusive DIY virtual NIC list separate from those that are already registered. And on top of all of this, as most virtual NICs can be programmed with any MAC address the user desires because they do not posses a physical computer chip with a burned-in address to load into RAM on boot as physical NICs do, even in the past these lists were unreliable.

Original source files provided by IEEE:
MA-S Registry: IEEE | Mirror
MA-M Registry: IEEE | Mirror
MA-L Registry: IEEE | Mirror

You can also download the complete OUI bundle which includes the master.txt, simplified.txt, and all of the IEEE source files.

Have questions or comments about the content on this page? ScriptTiger would love to hear them! Open a new issue in ScriptTiger's GitHub Mac-Address-Lookup repository to have your voice heard!