MAC Addresses Explained | Cisco CCNA 200-301

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What is a MAC address? MAC stands for Media Access Control. It’s a unique identifier that is assigned to a network interface card, aka a NIC.

This is what a MAC address looks like 08-00-27-EC-10-61. Its a 48-bit (6-byte) address that is used for layer 2 communication.

The first thing to note is that unlike IP addresses, which and can be changed, MAC addresses are burnt into NIC buy the manufacture.

A MAC address has 2 sections. The first 24-bits is called the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) and it identifies the vendor. The last 24-bits is a unique value assigned by the vendor. The result is an address that should be unique in the world.

There are three types of Mac address
Unicast - A unique mac address assigned to an interface
Multicast - An address used to send traffic to a device using a particular application/protocol.
Broadcast - An address that is sent to all devices within a local network.

Why do we need MAC addresses? When are computers are talking on the local area network or LAN, they use layer 2 communication, and layer 2 communication uses MAC addresses. When we leave our network, this is when the IP addresses are used. Routers are layer 3 devices and they mainly focus on IP addresses to get the data to the destination.

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