What is MAC Address and what does it represent?
thanx in advance
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What is MAC Address and what does it represent?
thanx in advance
MAC is the equivalent of the "hardware address" of a network (ethernet) card.
Some references (do a "man" on each of these on your UN*X box)
arp
ifconfig
ethers
route
MAC Address stands for Media Access Control Address.
It is a string of characters that identifies the specific hardware address of a network card.
What happens when you try and say, ping an ip address, is your machine first sends out an ARP broadcast (ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol), basically asking which MAC address owns the IP address you're trying to ping. Then it sends that information to the appropriate MAC address.
It's basically an Ethernet-level identifier that acts like an IP address. The reason you need it is because Ethernet can support multiple Protocols, of which TCP/IP is an example. Another popular Ethernet-based networking protocol is IPX/SPX.
Ethernet identifier is right. And it is unique to every adapter ever made, so it is presents a pretty big problem if you intend to hack aol or something. It is possible to find out a person's MAC addy online, though I have heard you can capture that information on route, but only with some major tweaks. You can check your MAC address at http://www.grc.com.