Difference Between An IP Address And A MAC Address – Guide
The main difference between MAC address and IP address is that MAC address (Media Access Control Address) is a physical address while IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a logical address. A computer network is a collection of devices connected to share data and resources. A device on the network has a MAC address and an IP address. The MAC address is a hardware address that is written to the NIC during the manufacturing process. On the other hand, the IP address is a logical address that helps to identify the device’s connection to the Internet. The user can view these addresses from their device by typing “ipconfig” at the command prompt. Both MAC address and IP address are used to uniquely define a device on the Internet. The NIC card manufacturer provides the MAC address, while the ISP provides the IP address. The main difference between MAC address and IP address is that MAC address is used to guarantee the physical address of the computer. It uniquely identifies devices on a network. While IP addresses are used to uniquely identify the network connection, the device participates in a network.
MAC Address vs. IP address: What is the difference?
Both MAC addresses and IP addresses are intended to identify a network device, but in different ways. Some of the main differences between a MAC address and an IP address include the following: A MAC address is responsible for local identification and an IP address for global identification. This is the main difference between a MAC address and an IP address and affects how they differ in their number of bits, address assignment, and interactions. The MAC address is only meaningful on the LAN a device is connected to and is not used or stored in the data stream when packets leave that network. Any Internet software, such as a web browser for example, routes data to a destination on the Internet using the IP address of the destination. This address is included in the data packets that the network software stack sends. People rarely use address numbers directly, but instead use DNS names, which the app translates into the appropriate number. Internet routers move packets from the source network to the destination network and then to the LAN to which the destination device is connected. This LAN translates the IP address into a MAC address, adds the MAC address to the data stream, and sends the data to the correct device. Another difference between a MAC address and an IP address is how the addresses are assigned. An IP address is linked to a network device through software settings and network administrators can change it at any time. LAN switches maintain Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) tables that map IP addresses to MAC addresses. When a router sends a packet to the switch with a destination specified by an IP address, it uses the ARP table to know which MAC address to attach to the packet when delivering the data as Ethernet frames to the forwarded device.
What is a MAC address?
Media access control refers to the hardware that controls how data is transmitted over a network. In the OSI reference model for networks, the MAC is a layer 2 device – or data link layer – and the MAC address is a layer 2 address. In today’s Internet age, most devices are physically connected with Ethernet cables or wireless with Wi-Fi. Fi connected. Both methods use MAC addresses to identify a device on the network. A MAC address consists of 12 hexadecimal digits, usually grouped into six pairs separated by dashes. MAC addresses are available from 00-00-00-00-00-00 to FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF. The first half of the number is typically used as a manufacturer ID, while the second half is a device identifier. On almost every enterprise network device today, whether Wi-Fi or Ethernet, this number is hardcoded into the device during the manufacturing process. Each MAC address is unique to the NIC installed in a device, but the number of device identification bits is limited, which means manufacturers reuse them. Each manufacturer has about 1.68 million addresses available, so if they write a device with a MAC address that ends in FF-FF-FF, it starts over at 00-00-00. This approach assumes that it is highly unlikely that two devices with the same address will end up up on the same local network segment. Two devices on a local network should never have the same MAC address. When this happens, both devices have communication problems because the local network is confused about which device should receive the packet. When a switch broadcasts a packet to all ports to find the intended recipient, the device that responds first receives the stream of packets addressed to it. If the device is rebooted, removed, or powered off, the other node can receive the packets.
What is an IP address?
IP controls how devices on the Internet communicate and defines the behavior of Internet routers. Corresponds to layer 3, the network layer, of the OSI reference model. The Internet was originally built around IP Version 4 (IPv4) and is transitioning to IPv6. An IP address identifies a device on the global Internet and acts as the device’s logical address to identify that network connection. An IPv4 address consists of 32 bits, usually written as four decimal numbers or a dotted quad. Possible values range from 000,000,000,000 to 255,255,255,255, although many possible addresses are not allowed or are reserved for specific purposes. The address combines the network identification and device identification data. The network prefix is between eight and 31 bits long, and the rest identifies the device on the network. The steady and rapid growth in the number of devices connected to the Internet has led to the imminent exhaustion of the IPv4 address list, one of several reasons for the development of IPv6. An IPv6 address is made up of 128 bits, where the first 64 are reserved for network identification and the second 64 are used to identify a device on the network. The address is written as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by colons – for example FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:0123:4567:89AB:CDEF. Fortunately, there are many conventions for truncating an IPv6 address when writing it.
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