netdev

Cross-platform library for enumerating network interfaces with metadata.
netdev provides a unified API for discovering local network interfaces and retrieving commonly used metadata across platforms.

Key Features

• Enumerate all available network interfaces
• Detect the default network interface
• Retrieve interface metadata:
  • Interface type
  • MAC address
  • IPv4 / IPv6 addresses and prefixes
  • MTU, flags, operational state, etc...
• Native traffic statistics (RX/TX bytes) for each interface
• Designed for cross-platform

See the Interface struct documentation for detail.

Supported platform

• Linux
• macOS
• Windows
• Android
• iOS
• BSDs

Usage

Add netdev to your Cargo.toml

[dependencies]
netdev = "0.43"

For more details, see examples or doc.

Feature flags

• gateway (default)
  • Enables default interface and default gateway helpers.
• apple-system-configuration-extra (default)
  • Enables deeper Apple metadata enrichment using SystemConfiguration APIs.
  • On Apple targets, this adds metadata such as interface display names, DHCP hints, and iOS DNS resolver lookup when the platform exposes them.
• android-extra (default)
  • Enables deeper Android metadata enrichment using Android platform APIs through JNI bindings.
  • On Android, this can add metadata such as traffic stats, DNS servers, DHCP hints, and Wi-Fi link speed when the app provides the required Android context and permissions.

To opt out of the deeper Apple enrichment while keeping gateway helpers:

[dependencies]
netdev = { version = "0.43", default-features = false, features = ["gateway"] }

Apple behavior

netdev links SystemConfiguration.framework automatically on macOS and iOS through the crate's own build script. If your final app link is performed by Xcode, you may still need to add SystemConfiguration.framework to the app target manually.

Android behavior

If you want Android-specific values such as DNS servers, DHCP hints, or Wi-Fi link speed, your app may still need to initialize the Android context for Rust and declare Android permissions such as ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE and ACCESS_WIFI_STATE.

Project History

This crate was originally published as default-net and later rebranded to netdev by the author myself for future expansion, clearer naming, and long-term maintenance.

Tested on

• Linux
  • Ubuntu
    • 24.04
    • 22.04
    • 21.10
    • 20.04
    • 18.04
  • Kali
    • 2024.2
    • 2023.2
    • 2022.1
    • 2021.1
  • Arch
    • 2024.05.01
• macOS (Apple Silicon)
  • 26.3.1
  • 14.7.6
• macOS (Intel)
  • 13.4.1
  • 11.6
• Windows
  • 11 25H2 26200.8037
  • 11 24H2 26100.6584
  • 11 23H2 22631.4602
  • 11 Pro 22H2 22621.3155
  • 11 22H2 22621.3155
  • 10 21H2 19044.1586
• FreeBSD
  • 14
• Android (arm64)
  • 16.0
• Android (x86_64)
  • 16.0
• iOS
  • 18.6.2
  • 18.1.1