Question:

Explain the difference between a MAC address and an IP address? After you explain the difference, give an analogy to demonstrate the difference.

MAC Address

A MAC address is assigned to each device by the manufacturer. The unique(sometimes not) code identifies the device on your local network. If you were to pull up your router page you would see every device on your network has it’s own unique MAC address and it does not change. The 6 leftmost digits identifies who made the device. It is used to connect to connect to the network whether wirelessly or through ethernet. A MAC address resembles this format: DE-56-0A-DC-E6-88. So if IP address is like your home address a MAC address is like your mailbox but in this case you might have more than one mailbox and they are all different colors.

IP Address

An IP address is different in that it can change as most ip addresses are given dynamically unless you set a static ip address. The ip address is unique though on every local network which is used to distinguish itself on the internet. Your ip address is basically your home address. Each device on the network doesn’t show itself to the outside world though but your router uses it’s own ip address to communicate with the outside world so you could say your router is your zipcode while your ip address for your device is your home address and thats how the server knows where to send the information back to. An IP address resembles this format: 192.168.1.1.