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Programmatic Access to Network Parameters
What Is a Network Interface?
Retrieving Network Interfaces
Listing Network Interface Addresses
Network Interface Parameters
Trail: Custom Networking
Lesson: Programmatic Access to Network Parameters

> Systems often run with multiple active network connections, such as wired Ethernet, `802.11 b/g` (wireless), and bluetooth. Some applications might need to access this information to perform the particular network activity on a specific connection.

> The `java.net.NetworkInterface` class provides access to this information.

> This lesson guides you through some of the more common uses of this class and provides examples that list all the network interfaces on a machine as well as their IP addresses and status.

> ### What Is a Network Interface?

> > This page describes a network interface and explains why you might want to use it.

> ### Retrieving Network Interfaces

> > This page contains an example that illustrates how a client program can retrieve all the network interfaces on a machine.

> ### Listing Network Interface Addresses

> > This page shows you how to list the IP addresses assigned to all the network interfaces on a machine.

> ### Network Interface Parameters

> > This page shows you how to determine whether a network interface is running or if the network interface is a loopback interface, a point-to-point interface, or a virtual interface. You can also learn how to determine if the interface supports multicasting.

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