What is "iBridge" interface on new MacBook Pro (later 2016) ?

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mubae Author

Level 1

14 points

What is "iBridge" interface on new MacBook Pro (later 2016) ?

Today I bought MacBook Pro 13 with Touch Bar, and found an unfamiliar network interface iBridge is configured.

It can be found in "Network Utility, but of course you can see it via ifconfig:

en5: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 index 4

eflags=1000080<TXSTART,ECN_ENABLE>

ether ac:de:48:00:11:22

inet6 fe80::aede:48ff:fe00:1122%en5 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4

nd6 options=281<PERFORMNUD,INSECURE,DAD>

media: autoselect

status: active

type: Ethernet

link quality: 100 (good)

state availability: 0 (true)

scheduler: QFQ

qosmarking enabled: no mode: none

Could you anyone tell me what is this iBridge?

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.1), 13inch with Touch Bar

Posted on Nov 26, 2016 9:15 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

yetanother

Level 1

9 points

Feb 15, 2017 1:34 AM in response to mubae

What is extremely annoying is the fact that Apple appears to be using the same MAC address (ac:de:48:00:11:22) for this interface on all Macs. Tools report that as a normal ethernet interface, and if you search for this you find plenty of devices matching 😟

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Answer 2

manfri

Level 1

8 points

Nov 30, 2016 2:51 AM in response to mubae

I think it's the interface to the Touch Bar. If you notice it says "USB" in network utility.

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