Lesson 6 - IP and Hardware Addressing

From lokesh sharma, your Guide to Wireless / Networking Today we will cover the relationship between Internet Protocol and hardware addresses. Just like DNS and other technologies manage the relationship between IP addresses and names, some other technologies manage the relationship between IP addresses and the computer hardware.

IP and Hardware Addressing

Introduction to MAC Addressing MAC is the numeric address of a network adapter, also called the "hardware" or "physical" address. Both MAC addressing and IP addressing must work together on a computer network for it to function properly. Read all three pages of this article to learn what MAC addresses look like, how to find the MAC address of your computer, and how to change or "clone" MAC addresses.

Introduction to winipcfg The 'winipcfg' utility on Windows computers (introduced in a previous lesson) doesn't only work with IP addresses. It also displays the subnet mask and the MAC address for a computer. This page illustrates with screen captures.

Vocabulary

ARP ARP is the protocol that actually converts IP addresses to MAC addresses. This page explains what "ARP" stands for and how it works.

NAT NAT is a technology that translates IP addresses. Whereas ARP translates IP addresses to MAC addresses, NAT translates IP addresses to other IP addresses. NAT is a common feature on home broadband routers.

Additional Reading

Home broadband routers Broadband routers greatly simply the process of setting up an Internet Protocol home network. Many models contain built-in DHCP server, NAT and MAC address cloning.

This email is written by: lokesh sharma