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I would like to see some information, including MAC address, of a WiFi hotspot that I tried to connect to and failed in the past.

I can not try connecting to it again any more, because it is not a hotspot that is in range, but one that I noticed and tried to connect to once.

Are there logs for this? Where can I find them?

Adding to this: I need to be able to find and identigy the network or device again even if they changed their name. From what I've read the UUID is assigned by NetworkManager to the connection, and the MAC address it stores is my MAC address, not the address of the network I tried to connect to. Is there any way to see information in the logs about the target network? Is it possible to extract a MAC address out of the UUID or something like that? I really need this.

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  • According to this old forum post, the config files should be in ~/.gconf/system/networking/connections or in /etc/NetworkManager/, note that .gconf is a hidden directory, so you need to enable "Show hidden directories" in nautilus to see it (Ctrl + H). However, I'm not sure if it has the information you want - afaik it only stores the SSID and the password, as that's all that's needed to connect. You can also run nmcli -p con show to see info of connections. See also the nmcli manpage. – JonasCz Jun 17 '16 at 14:47
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The log will be found in /etc//NetworkManager/system-connections. Here, for example, is a slightly redacted listing from my machine:

sudo cat /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/MMMB\ Wi-Fi

[connection]
id=MMMB Wi-Fi
uuid=3ab72ecb-9f3f-4642-82eb-15b0ff90819a
type=wifi
permissions=user:chili:;
secondaries=

[wifi]
mac-address=XX:3D:82:7A:FE:XX
mac-address-blacklist=
mac-address-randomization=0
mode=infrastructure
seen-bssids=
ssid=MMMB Wi-Fi

[wifi-security]
auth-alg=open
group=
key-mgmt=wpa-psk
pairwise=
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  • Unfortunately that MAC address is the address of my hardware, not the hardware I am trying to locate, and the UUID is an identifier assigned by my NetworkManager and not something that comes from the hardware I am trying to find. Is there any way to see any identifying information about the hardware I am trying to find? Perhaps extract the MAC address out of the UUID? – yman Jun 18 '16 at 20:56

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