Every connected device around the world comes with a unique Media Access Control address, or a   MAC address.

A common task a network administrator may come across is being able to identify a network device's manufacturer when given only a MAC address.



Task

Interface with one (or numerous) APIs that exist on the internet and retrieve the device manufacturer based on a supplied MAC address.

A MAC address that does not return a valid result should return the String "N/A".   An error related to the network connectivity or the API should return a null result.

Many implementations on this page use http://api.macvendors.com/ which, as of 19th September 2021, is throttling requests. After only 2 calls, the following response is returned for all subsequent requests. If you are planning to use the same provider or going to run the examples on this page, consider building in a delay between two calls.

{"errors":{"detail":"Too Many Requests","message":"Please slow down your requests or upgrade your plan at https://macvendors.com"}}

use HTTP::UserAgent;
 
my $ua = HTTP::UserAgent.new;
 
$ua.timeout = 10; # seconds
 
my $server = 'http://api.macvendors.com/';
 
sub lookup ($mac) {
    my $response = $ua.get: "$server+$mac";
    sleep 1;
    return $response.is-success ?? $response.content !! 'N/A';
 
    CATCH {             # Normally you would report some information about what
        default { Nil } # went wrong, but the task specifies to ignore errors.
    }
}
 
for <
BC:5F:F4
FC-A1-3E
10:dd:b1
00:0d:4b
23:45:67
> -> $mac { say lookup $mac }