Well I do know why/when we use MAC/IP address, but I just thought what would be the most good answer you can provide for this when asked during interviews.
2006-12-02 22:00:09 · 6 answers · asked by cool_aditya_blore 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Computer Networking
Well, with the current MAC standards, that wouldn't make much sense. A MAC address is 6 bytes long, and the first three bytes are reserved for manufacturer ID. While this combination would yield around 280 trillion theoretically possible addresses, contra IPv4s roughly 4.3 billion, the MAC address simply wasn't meant for routing purposes. You can't structure or superroute MAC addresses, as NICs with adjacent MAC addresses could be on the other side of the world from eachother. The only possible solution would be that every backbone internet router had a huge routing table with every possible MAC address registered, or relied on a central server cluster of ridiculous capacity to draw this preregistered information from.
This would not only be technologically implausible, but would raise internet traffic by at least an order of magnitude.
The only real advantage layer 3 MAC routing would have is the increase in addresses, and this will be a nonissue with the deployment of IPv6, as this will expand the number of possible IP addresses to 2^128 (type it into your calculator and watch it melt down).
2006-12-03 00:46:24 · answer #1 · answered by Mikkel 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
MAC addresses are layer 2 based. They are good for talking to the local network and other PCs connected to that network, but when you try to talk to a PC not on the network, the MAC address is limited in use.
IP addresses are layer 3 based. They can easily be routed between different networks, but they must use MAC addresses to find a specific PC on the network, (using ARP).
Also, most MAC addresses are burned into the card they use. They cannot be easily changed. IP addresses can be easily changed. So, for instance, if a network card in your server stopped working, you can put in a new network card and you can change the IP of the new card to the IP the old card had. You can't easily do that with MAC addresses. IP addresses are more flexible.
2006-12-03 11:51:55 · answer #2 · answered by Bryan A 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Well what I feel is that MAC is just not used because its not geography specific. See you cant argue that IPV4 is easier becoz we r trying to shift to IPV6 which is again hex based. But imagine this way. If a TCP packet were to travel from say US to India. Using MAC address it would never understand which way to go. I mean just imagine the number of DNS servers it would have to ask about the packet. But with IP its easier. Say the packet is to be routed to India. India specifically would have a subnet something like 202.x.x.x or so. So its is easier to send the packet coz atleast u can bring down the possibility range to India. Then ping some DNS servers in India to know the location of the target. Anyway both work on different layers and this is what I reasoned out... What do u say,
2006-12-03 06:09:46 · answer #3 · answered by Chaitanya 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
nicely, your ISP distributes IP addresses immediately utilising a DHCP server. maximum routers do not have an determination to set a static IP yet seeing that yours does then convinced, you may set it, providing that is interior the IP manage variety owned with the aid of your ISP and used on the subnet on your section... even if... each IP manage on a community must be unique. in case you positioned your IP manage to an manage already assigned to a distinct person with the aid of DHCP then there'll be 2 interfaces with the same manage. This motives routing loops, and information will very nearly actual be lost as a series of packets might want to nicely be in part despatched to 2 different hosts. The community will purely get congested and sluggish with floods of routing incorrect routing updates eat each of the bandwidth. Routing and ARP tables will be incorrect and both hosts will be unable to effectively use the internet. that is sweet to easily leave it as dynamic.
2016-11-23 14:07:06 · answer #4 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
MAC address is very difficulut to remember.. ip address is somewhat easy to remember.. other thing is that MAC is a technical term.. and ip address is logical.. MAC is firmware related term when ip is logical.
2006-12-02 22:21:00 · answer #5 · answered by yogesh p 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We could have if all DNS servers, routers, and MAC addresses were structured for this use.
2006-12-02 22:09:26 · answer #6 · answered by fernando_007 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋