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What is the full form of MAC?

Posted in Technology   LAST UPDATED: MAY 3, 2021

    What does mac stand for?

    • MAC stands for Media Access Control address. It is a hardware identification number linked with each device connected to the network. In particular, each device's network interface card including, Bluetooth, wifi, or ethernet card is fixed with the mac address which is unchanged. It is basically the hardware network of a computer device that cannot be changed
    • It is placed inside the device at the time of manufacturing. The network interface device is embedded in the device to enable it to connect to a network. Data is turned into electrical signals and transferred between networks. Some of the well-known manufacturing companies are Norton, Cisco, and dell.

    What is a mac address used for?

    Packets that are sent through the ethernet are always sent to a mac address and are coming back to a mac address. The network adapter that receives these packets, compares the destination of the mac address with the mac address of the network adapter itself. If the addresses match then the packet is sent, otherwise it is repudiated.

    ARCHITECTURE OF MAC ADDRESS

    What is the difference between MAC address and IP address?

    1. MAC address works at the data link layer whereas IP address operates at the network 3 levels. It could be thought of as an IP address tales control of the software implementation whereas the MAC address supports the hardware implementation of the network stack.

    2. The mac address cannot be changed as it is inserted in the device at the time of manufacturing whereas an IP address keeps on changing from one network to another

    3. IP networks always maintain an association between an IP address and the Mapping address of a device. This association is referred to as ARP cache and ARP table ARP stands for address resolution protocol and keeps tabs on keeping the cache up to date.

    4. Finding a mac address on a device varies from one device to another. Every device has a utility program to locate the MAC address.

    5. There is a huge difference between how numbers are sequenced in an IP address that of a MAC address. IP address involves a string of u unique no. in one line whereas a MAC address has two six-digit hexadecimal numbers that are separated by a semicolon.

    6. A mac address looks like this 0d:00:b1:8e:83:C1 whereas an IP address looks like 123.45.489.34.

    How is the mac address divided?

    The bit sequence of mac address is divided into 4 parts:

    1. BIT 1( Reciever)

    The first part of the mac address specifies whether it is a group or individual address. 1/G is short for individual groups. If 1/G=0 it is a unicast address for a single network adapter. Multiple cast address are identified by 1/G=1 and are addressed to several receivers

    2. BIT 2 (registry)

    The second part of mac address specifies if the address has global validity or if the address is assigned to a local area. This is indicated by U/L. If U/L=0, then the address is assigned globally. Addresses that are locally defined are denoted by U/L=1. It is known as a universally administered address or locally administered address.

    3. BIT 3-24( manufacturing identification)

    These bits encode the identifier which is associated significantly with hardware manufacturers by IEEE. This assignment is generally public.

    4. BIT 25-48( network adapter identifier)

    Bits 25-48 give the manufacturing provider 24 bits to provide a unique hardware identifier

    What are the features of mac address?

    • The first 6 numbers of a mac address focus on providing manufacturing data. It is referred to as an organizational unique identifier.
    • The network interface system allotted by the manufacturing company is identified by the last 6 digits.
    • IP addresses are linked with the TCP while the network adapter is aligned with mac addresses

    What are the advantages of a mac address?

    • There is no attachment cost related to the no. of system it connects to the network
    • mac addresses are unique for all users on the same subnetwork
    • It is convenient for a network manager in finding consistency in recognizing sending and receiving information on the internet with the help of mac address.
    • The efficacy of a mac address makes it simple to identify problems related to an IP address.

    What are the drawbacks of a mac address?

    • If a person continuously changes his mac address an attacker may gain an advantage.
    • Filtering is useless for a mac address as a hacker can easily spoof the mac address of an authorized computer. Hackers use a program called sniffer to get around a white list and intercept data between networks.
    • Spoofing is not difficult to execute for a hacker to intercept data.

    CONCLUSION

    The above article summarizes everything you need to know about MAC. It covers everything from what is the full form of mac, what is mac address used for, the difference between mac and IP address, how the mack address is divided into BITS, features of a mac address, advantages of a mac address, and what are its disadvantages.

    About the author:
    I am the founder of Studytonight. I like writing content about C/C++, DBMS, Java, Docker, general How-tos, Linux, PHP, Java, Go lang, Cloud, and Web development. I have 10 years of diverse experience in software development.
    Tags:MACFullFormComputer Networks
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