Media Access Control Address

So talk about the MAC address on every Network interface card. The analogy that is generally used with MAC addresses and IP addresses in the networking field is that they're analogous to the name of a pupil in a classroom- that is always the analogy that is used. The schoolteacher and the other scholars in that classroom may not know how to find or address one another if they do not have a name for each other if they do not know what to call each other. So each person has a name each pupil and the schoolteacher or preceptors have a name. A MAC address is same as name physical assigned to each NIC card or each NIC interface on a motherboard.

On every NIC burned onto a ROM chip is special firmware containing a unique identifier with a 48 bits ’ value called the Media Access Control address or MAC address for short. No 2 NIC's ever partake the same MAC address EVER! Any company that makes NIC's that manufactures them must communicate the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (also known as IEEE) and request a block of MAC addresses which that company also burns into the ROMs or the ROM chips on its NIC's.

Numerous NIC makers also publish the MAC address on the face of each NIC like you see then below. MAC addresses are written with a hexadecimal number because each hex character represents 4 bits each and it takes 12 hex characters to represent 48 bits. The MAC address on this NIC card shown then's MAC address 00- 40- 05- A7- BA- 71 we put hyphens between every two hexadecimal characters in that MAC address.

Fig 1: Media Access Control Address

The first 6 integers in this illustration00-40-05 represent the number of the NIC manufacturer. Once the IEEE issues those 6 hex integers to that manufacturer frequently called the Organizationally Unique Identifier (or OUI) no other manufacturer may use those 6 integers in that order. The last 6 integers in this illustration are A7- BA- 71 Well those are the manufacturers unique periodical number for that specific NIC. This portion of the MAC address is frequently called the" Device ID" so the first half is the OUI first half the MAC address is the OUI the Organizationally Unique Identifier and the last half the last 6 integers is the Device ID for that specific NIC card.

Would you like to see the MAC address for your NIC on the computer that you are on now? If you have a Windows system hunt for the command line program you can search for CMD also called a Command Line Interface. And once that textbook command program is open it will look analogous to this you are going to class in" ipconfig all" and hit ENTER. You are going to do that from the command advisement to display the MAC address like you see then. Now note that in the config affair the MAC address is always called the" physical address" that is how it's appertained to when you source it on a computer like this. So that is the introductory functions of the NIC card and what we are pertaining to when we talk about the MAC address on a computing device or any device connected to a network.