The following AppleScript code will return all the network services in the Network Setup.
tell application "System Events"
tell current location of network preferences
set names to get name of every service
end tell
end tell
How do I get only the active network service name instead of all?
Update with clarification: 'active' in this context means the network service to whose interface the current [primary] IPv4 address is bound.
@mcgrailm's answer shows you how to obtain all active (read: not disabled) network services, whether currently bound to addresses or not.
This answer, by contrast, shows you how to determine the network service to whose interface the current (primary) IPv4 address is bound:
Unfortunately, this is non-trivial, as the information must be drawn from several sources:
services
objects (from dictionary System Events.sdef
) contains no information about currently bound addresses.service
object's interface
property contains a MAC address
property.IPv4 address of (system info)
returns the current (primary) IPv4 address, sadly, primary Ethernet address of (system info)
always returns the wired Ethernet interface's MAC address, which may or may not be the interface to which the current IPv4 address is bound.do shell script
to parse the output from CLI ifconfig
with help from awk
.# Obtain the [network] `service` instance underlying the
# current IPv4 address...
set serviceWithPrimaryIpv4Address to my networkServiceByIp4Address("")
# ... and extract the name.
set nameOfServiceWithPrimaryIpv4Address to name of serviceWithPrimaryIpv4Address
# ---- Helper handlers.
# SYNOPSIS
# networkServiceByIp4Address([addr])
# DESCRIPTION
# Given (one of) the local system's IPv4 address(es), returns the network service object whose interface
# the address is bound to (class `network service` is defined in `Sytem Events.sdef`).
# If `addr` is an empty string or a missing value, the current primary IPv4 address is used.
# An error is thrown if no matching service is found.
on networkServiceByIp4Address(addr)
local macAddress
set macAddress to my ip4ToMacAddress(addr)
tell application "System Events"
try
tell current location of network preferences
return first service whose (MAC address of interface of it) is macAddress
end tell
end try
end tell
error "No network service found matching IP address '" & addr & "'." number 500
end networkServiceByIp4Address
# SYNOPSIS
# ip4ToMacAddress([addr])
# DESCRIPTION
# Given (one of) the local system's IPv4 address(es), returns the corresponding network interface's
# MAC address (regardless of interface type).
# If `addr` is an empty string or a missing value, the current primary IPv4 address is used.
# An error is thrown if no matching MAC address is found.
on ip4ToMacAddress(addr)
if addr as string is "" then set addr to IPv4 address of (system info)
try
do shell script "ifconfig | awk -v ip4=" & ¬
quoted form of addr & ¬
" 'NF==2 && $2 ~ /^[a-f0-9]{2}(:[a-f0-9]{2}){5}$/ {macAddr=$2; next} $1 == \"inet\" && $2 == ip4 {print macAddr; exit}'"
if result ≠ "" then return result
end try
error "No MAC address found matching IP address '" & addr & "'." number 500
end ip4ToMacAddress
my ip4ToMacAddress("")