What's the difference between a MAC address and an IP address?

Answer 1

MAC address is like the serial number of your network interface device (LAN or WiFi port, if you have both, you have two separate MAC addresses).

IP is like your serial number on the Internet.

Both addresses are unique. There are none other like them. You can not change the MAC address, but your IP address can (and often does) change depending on the network you are connected to. Sometimes your network automatically assigns you an IP address (dynamic) but sometimes it's coded into your OS by your network manager (static).

Incidentally, if you are on a LAN (Local Area Network) that is connected to the internet (probably through a router), then your computer actually has two IP addresses: It's address in the LAN, and it's address in the Internet. (I believe the internet IP address is shared by all the computers on the LAN, it's the router that separates the packets and routes them to the computer that requested it.)

Answer 2

MAC Addresses
The chances are very good that you'll never see the MAC address for any of your equipment because the software that helps your computer communicate with a network takes care of matching the MAC address to a logical address. The logical address is what the network uses to pass information along to your computer.

If you'd like to see the MAC address and logical address used by the Internet Protocol (IP) for your Windows computer, you can run a small program that Microsoft provides. Go to the "Start" menu, click on "Run," and in the window that appears, type WINIPCFG (IPCONFIG/ALL for Windows 2000/XP). When the gray window appears, click on "More Info" and you'll get this sort of information:

Internet Protocol: IP Addresses
Every machine on the Internet has a unique identifying number, called an IP Address. The IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is the language that computers use to communicate over the Internet. A protocol is the pre-defined way that someone who wants to use a service talks with that service. The "someone" could be a person, but more often it is a computer program like a Web browser.

A typical IP address looks like this:

216.27.61.137

I hope it helps!

Answer 3

A MAC ID is a hardware ID. Most devices like video card, modems, communication adapters and other add-on devices all have a unique ID. It is usually created at the time of manufacture and cannot be changed. An IP address is an address on a network that identifies that computer on the network. IP addresses are assigned by the network administrator (or automatically by a router. IP addresses are not permanent. If you have a laptop, then your IP address when connected to your home network will be different from the IP address you have when you connect to your office network.

Answer 4

The MAC address is a unique number that is burned into your network card. Think of it as the "serial number" for the card. It never changes. If you move the card to a new computer, the MAC address goes with it.

Your IP address is a temporary number that is assigned to you when you make an Internet connection. The IP address links your network card with the web site you want to access. The address changes each time you make a new connection.

If you were to move to a different computer, you would get a different IP address. If you were to move your Network card to a different computer, it would keep the same MAC but get a new IP.

(However, some ISPs set it up a table that matches MAC addresses with IP addresses so that each time you MAC ask for a new connection, it is re-assigned the same IP. This lets them better control the number of IP address they need. So may keep that same "temporary" number.)

But the main difference is a MAC is permanent and located inside your Network card. An IP is temporary and give to you for use by your ISP.

Answer 5

An IP address is an address that is given to a machine on a network. It helps to identify a machine on any network and route information accordingly.

A MAC address is a physicial address that every computer has and is unique, regardless as to wheather or not it is on a network. The MAC address comes from an installed network card.

These are 2 completely different addresses. One identifies a machine on a network (IP Address) and the other physically MAC identifies the computer.

Think of it this way... An IP address is like your house address. When you get mail, the post office knows where to send it. The platt, or detailed map of your house that details exact boundaries and locations of the building on your property is like your MAC. No other house will have the same platt.

GL

Answer 6

IP - This definition is based on Internet Protocol Version 4. See Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) for a description of the newer 128-bit IP address. Note that the system of IP address classes described here, while forming the basis for IP address assignment, is generally bypassed today by use of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) addressing.
In the most widely installed level of the Internet Protocol (IP) today, an IP address is a 32-bit number that identifies each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packets across the Internet. When you request an HTML page or send e-mail, the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP includes your IP address in the message (actually, in each of the packets if more than one is required) and sends it to the IP address that is obtained by looking up the domain name in the Uniform Resource Locator you requested or in the e-mail address you're sending a note to. At the other end, the recipient can see the IP address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender and can respond by sending another message using the IP address it received.
An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which can be a server or a workstation) within that network. On the Internet itself - that is, between the router that move packets from one point to another along the route - only the network part of the address is looked at
MAC - In a local area network (LAN) or other network, the MAC (Media Access Control) address is your computer's unique hardware number. (On an Ethernet LAN, it's the same as your Ethernet address.) When you're connected to the Internet from your computer (or host as the Internet protocol thinks of it), a correspondence table relates your IP address to your computer's physical (MAC) address on the LAN.
The MAC address is used by the Media Access Control sublayer of the Data-Link Layer (DLC) of telecommunication protocols. There is a different MAC sublayer for each physical device type. The other sublayer level in the DLC layer is the Logical Link Control sublayer.
For more deffinitions related to Computer terms you can go to - http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition

Answer 7

MAC Address
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

IP Address
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address

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