MAC or IP? — TechKnowSurge

About this interactive

On a local network, frames are delivered by MAC address. That works because everyone on the LAN hears the frame. But MAC addresses are burned in by whoever made the network card, so they are scattered at random: the next address in a maker's sequence could be on the other side of the world. To find one MAC address anywhere on the planet you would need a database of the location of every device, which is unmanageable (and a security risk). MAC addresses only work locally. IP addresses solve this by being hierarchical. IANA hands large blocks of addresses to organizations responsible for regions of the world; they hand smaller blocks to internet service providers, who hand them to businesses, who give them to their devices. A packet can be sent toward the right region, then the right provider, then the right network, each one narrowing it down. An IPv4 address is 32 bits. People read it as four decimal numbers, one for each 8-bit octet, separated by dots: 192.168.40.41. Each octet runs from 0 to 255. A device gets its IP address when it connects to a network, usually from DHCP. Take a laptop to another network and it gets a different address there; its burned-in MAC address stays the same. (Some devices show a different, software-set MAC on Wi-Fi for privacy, but the burned-in address itself does not change.) On Windows, ipconfig shows the IPv4 address, subnet mask and default gateway; ipconfig /all adds the Physical Address, which is the MAC address.

What you'll learn

Tell a MAC address from an IP address by its form: 48 bits as 12 hexadecimal digits, against 32 bits as four dotted decimal numbers
Explain why a device needs both: a burned-in MAC address only works on the local network, while an IP address is assigned where the device connects and is hierarchical, so packets can be routed across the planet

Aligned to

ISC2 CC

4.1 Understand network security

Cisco CCST Networking

2.2 Identify IPv4 addresses and subnet formats

CompTIA Network+

1.7 Given a scenario, use appropriate IPv4 network addressing.

Cisco CCNA

1.10 Verify IP parameters for Client OS

CompTIA A+ Core 1

2.6 Compare and contrast common network configuration concepts.

Key terms

MAC Address: A 48-bit hardware address assigned to a network interface and written as six hexadecimal octets, such as 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E. It identifies a device uniquely on a local network segment, and switches forward frames by looking it up in their MAC address table.
IP Address: A numerical label assigned to each device connected to a network that uses the Internet Protocol.
IPv4: The fourth version of the Internet Protocol, using 32-bit addresses that provide approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses.
Hierarchical Addressing: An addressing scheme that organizes IP addresses into structured levels, enabling efficient routing and delegated administration of address ranges.
Octet: One of the four 8-bit sections of an IPv4 address, each separated by a dot in dotted decimal notation and representing a decimal value from 0 to 255. For example, in 192.168.1.1, the four octets are 192, 168, 1, and 1.
Dotted Decimal Notation: The standard human-readable format for representing IPv4 addresses as four decimal numbers (octets) separated by periods, such as 192.168.1.1. Each decimal value represents one 8-bit octet of the 32-bit IPv4 address.
Burned-In Address: A MAC address permanently assigned to a network interface card by its manufacturer at the time of production.
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority: The organization responsible for coordinating global IP addressing, port number assignments, and other internet protocol resources.
ipconfig: A Windows command-line utility used to display and manage the IP configuration of network interfaces on a local system.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol: A network protocol that automatically assigns IP addresses and other configuration parameters to devices on a network.
Default Gateway: The router that a device uses to send traffic to destinations outside its local network.

Topics

Mac Address Ip Address Ipv4 Hierarchical Addressing Interactive Streak Sort

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