A media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The multicast IP addresses above all map to the same multicast MAC address (01-00-5E-01-01-01). This can cause some problems in our networks. For example, a host that listens to the 239.1.1.1 multicast IP address will configure its network card to listen to MAC address.
In order to communicate or transfer the data from one computer to another computer we need some address. In Computer Network various types of address are introduced; each works at different layer. Media Access Control Address is a physical address which works at Data Link Layer. In this article, we will discuss about addressing in DLL, which is MAC Address.
Media Access Control (MAC) Address –
Jun 04, 2019 The multicast MAC address is a special value that begins with 01-00-5E in hexadecimal. The range of multicast MAC addresses is from 01-00-5E-00-00-00 to 01-00-5E-7F-FF-FF for Ethernet and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) media access control ( MAC ) addresses. An Ethernet multicast MAC address indentifies receivers that belong to the same multicast group at the data link layer. IPv4 multicast MAC addresses. As defined by IANA, the most significant 24 bits of an IPv4 multicast MAC address are 0x01005E. Bit 25 is 0, and the other 23 bits are the least significant 23 bits of an IPv4 multicast address.
MAC Addresses are unique 48-bits hardware number of a computer, which is embedded into network card (known as Network Interface Card) during the time of manufacturing. MAC Address is also known as Physical Address of a network device. In IEEE 802 standard, Data Link Layer is divided into two sublayers –
- Logical Link Control(LLC) Sublayer
- Media Access Control(MAC) Sublayer
MAC address is used by Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer of placeholder='Add your personal notes here! (max 5000 chars)'>
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In Ethernet, broadcast and multicast addresses always describe a group of recipients. But the unicast is used to explain communication where data is sent from one point to another point.
Unicast Address
In case of a unicast address, a packet has sent from a single source to a specific destination. All Ethernet and IP networks support unicast transmission. A unicast MAC address is the unique address uses for sending a packet from a single transmitting device to a single destination device.
For sending a unicast packet from source to destination, a destination IP address must be in the IP packet header. A destination MAC address must also be present in the Ethernet frame header. The IP address and MAC address combine to deliver data to a specific destination
Multicast Address
A multicast address is a logical identifier for a group of hosts in a computer network that is available to process datagram or frames intended to be multicast for a designated network service. The Data link layer of the OSI model also uses a multicast address.
The multicast MAC address is a special value that begins with 01-00-5E in hexadecimal. The range of multicast MAC addresses is from 01-00-5E-00-00-00 to 01-00-5E-7F-FF-FF for Ethernet and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) media access control (MAC) addresses. The remaining portion of the multicast MAC address is created; by converting the lower 23 bits of the IP multicast group address into 6 hexadecimal characters.
The range of IPv4 multicast addresses is 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. By the help of multicast addresses; a source device can send a packet to a group of devices that belong to a multicast group. These devices assign a multicast group of IP address. The source will also be a unicast address.
Mac Address For Ipv6 Multicast
The online games also use multicast addresses, where many players connected remotely but playing the same game. Another use of the multicast address is in distance learning through video conferencing, where many students connected to the same class.
Broadcast Address
When a single computer sends messages to many at once, is called a broadcast. The television broadcasting is the most common example of a broadcast. The radio transmission is another example of broadcasting.
In computer networking, a broadcast means that the network sends one copy of a packet to each destination. The broadcast is used very frequently in the networking world. The terms broadcast IP address and broadcast MAC address is common in networking.
Multicast Ip Mac Address Calculator
A broadcast packet also contains a destination IPv4 address that has all ones (1s) in the host portion (see 172.17.255.255) in IP Packet. This numbering in the address means that all hosts on that local network (broadcast domain) will receive the packet.
Several network protocols, such as ARP and DHCP, use broadcasts. When the IPv4 broadcast packet is encapsulated in the Ethernet frame, the destination MAC address is the broadcast MAC address of FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF in hexadecimal which is 48 ones in binary.
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