`test.test_uuid.test_find_mac` relies on `ifconfig` binary presence, which is on its way out. This makes the test fail on more and more Linux installations.
Using `env` (for example) is more reliable. `ip` could also be used since it's the replacement to `ifconfig`, but an always-present binary such as `env` makes it work in all cases.
This is what the (trivial) patch does.

The same reasoning applies to `uuid.getnode`: if 'Unix dll' source is not available it will try to get a MAC address 'ifconfig' which will fail, and the fallback will be `_random_getnode` (but that's another issue).

It would be nice to switch to "ip link". The ip command became the new standard on Linux. I don't know if the ip command is available on other operating systems.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iproute2 "ip" is Linux-only.
I opened an issue with a patch that brings "ip link list" to "uuid.getnode()": http://bugs.python.org/issue22902

(Only Python 2.7, 3.4 and 3.5 accepted bug fixes; other versions only accept security fixes.)

How the test fail? Could you provide test output?

I realize that I was not working against the tip... The patch I offered does not apply since revision 88068, which fixes the test by skipping it when "ifconfig" isn't available. Therefore this issue is invalid.

However I think that "test_find_mac" should always should not be skipped but use any other binary instead.


(Context: I'm trying to start contributing by fixing tests/'easy' bugs; I should have updated by cpython repo beforehand...)

Closed the issue since it's already been fixed.