MAC Address and how to find it. (+Uses)
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MAC Address
MAC Address stands for the ‘Media Access Control Address'. It’s device's unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC). As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens and colons. Mostly, MAC addresses are assigned by the manufacturers. These are unique codes and if somehow 2 device contain the same MAC address, they can not communicate properly.
How to find MAC Address?
On PC (Windows)
- Open “Run” (WIN key + R).
- Type “ncpa.cpl” and hit Enter.
- Right click on any active network and select “Status”
- Here “Physical Address” is the MAC Address
On phone (Android)
- Go to “Settings → System → About Phone → Status”
- Here “Wi-fi MAC Address” is the unique MAC address of your phone
Uses of MAC Address
Each network cards has a unique MAC Addres. Ethernet packet comes and they are sent to another MAC address(Another metwork card).
Each packet contains destination MAC address and of that address matches the destination Network Card's MAC addres, the packet is taken. Otherwise it's denied.
Special MAC address like ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff are used to broadcast and the packet with these addresses are taken by each network cards.
IMPORTANT: MAC addresses are only used by the network adapters like routers or switches.
MAC addresses are unique. So why we need an IP address?
Answer is totally simple. IP addresses are used to make a address reachable.
MAC addresses represent the Network cards and IP address represent the user (Mostly)
So if these two addresses are combine, they becomes reachable.
For example, your email address. Your username is however unique. But if anyone have to send you email, they have to use the service provider name also. The provider address makes the username reachable. This is how the IP and MAC address works. But IP address changes when we use VPNs.
Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
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