What is the difference between an Ethernet Address and an mac address?

Answer 1

mac address is also called physical address which is assigned to the network interface controller primarily by the device manufacture and it is unique for a device. However, an IP address is a logical address which is used to identify a device connected to a network. If a device is connected to more than one network interfaces, then it can have more than one IP addresses.

Answer 2

Ethernet address is really not a good term to use. I think you mean a MAC address. A MAC address is given to any device that accesses the internet. Such devices include WiFi cards, modems, and routers. These are only used by networks that devices connect to, and not by websites. They can be used for filtering and identifying devices on a network.

Ip (internet Protocol) addresses are assigned to networks (one per network) by an ISP (Internet Service Provider) such as Comcast. These are sent to everything you interact with online, so that your network, rather than your computer, is identified.

Now there are two kinds of Ip addresses: internal and external. Internal are used by your network to identify each device that connects to it. External Ip's are assigned by your ISP to identify you to the world. I explained the difference more in-depth in another answer, which is right here:

What_is_the_difference_between_an_Ip_address_and_a_http_address

Answer 3

Mac address are used less often than IP addresses, and are more heavily linked to the hardware they are assigned to. IP addresses are more commonly used for sending information to the correct place on the network.

Answer 4

Ethernet address, also called MAC address, is a 48-bit number used to uniquely identify each computer in a network. The address is usually written in hexadecimal form. It's possible you are thinking of IP address vs MAC address. An IP address is the identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255., example 127.0.0.1 (this is also the loopback ip if you are looking to ping yourself).

In computer networking a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a quasi-unique identifier attached to most network adapters. It is a number that serves as an identifier for a particular network adapter. Thus network cards (or built-in network adapters) in two different computers will have different MAC addresses, as would an ethernet adapter and a wireless adapter in the same computer, and as would multiple network cards in a router.

Ethernet address and Mac address are not the same.MAC(Media access control) address is a unique id of the network interface (through which you connect to a network). The most commonly use network interface is Ethernet and hence often the MAC address is termed as Ethernet address. If you use Infiniband instead of Ethernet then its MAC address cannot be called Ethernet address.

Answer 5

Mac and physical address as both are same A MAC (or Machine Access Control) address is best thought of as a unique serial number assigned to every network interface on every device. And by unique, I do mean unique; no two network cards anywhere should have the same MAC address.

Answer 6

IP address: Its a logical address defined by admins and it is of 32 bit address. MAC address: Media Access Control, its a physical address printed on NIC card. Its of 48 bit hexadecimal address.

Answer 7

I agree with James' answer, so I will only add to it by saying that you can kind of think of it as you would a home address and a phone number. The home address is a fixed address that is forever there while the phone number can change. Today, the person living there may have a phone number of 202-555-1212 but next week or next year that phone number may be something very different, say 801-555-1411. The MAC address is the same way. That is the physical address while the IP address is what is used during that network access session to be able to communicate.

In some cases, one will find that, just like with the toll-free number of the IRS being 800-829-1040, the IP address remain constant rather than periodically changing. This is commonly true for servers, network printers, managed network switches, and other such devices that need to be easily located. This is accomplished through what is called IP address binding or IP address reservation. The network engineer sets up a certain list of devices within the DHCP server always to assign a specific IP address to a specific MAC address rather than have one randomly assigned from the available address pool as would be more common for typical end-user machines and other devices.

If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me a line.

Answer 8

* MAC addresses are used at layer 2 of the OSI model; IP addresses are layer-3 addresses.* MAC addresses are globally unique. IP addresses may not be unique, if private addresses are used.

* IP addresses have a sort of hierarchical structure (at the very least, network and host parts). MAC addresses are "flat" (no hierarchy).

* MAC addresses are 6 bytes long. IP addresses are either 4 or 16 bytes long.

* A MAC address is only relevant within its network. An IP network may be globally relevant.

Answer 9

802.11 is for wireless, Ethernet is for your wired network.