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#Mac home network security how to#
#Mac home network security license#
#Mac home network security mac#
#Mac home network security windows#

This IP reservation feature is quite helpful for advanced network applications.Ĭonversely, you can also use MAC to deny (or explicitly allow) access to an adapter via MAC filtering, a kind of a security feature. When this happens within the network, the device will get the same IP address each time it connects. You can also use the MAC to reserve a particular IP address for an adapter within a local network. Without an IP address, the device can’t connect at all. Without MAC, an adapter can’t get an IP address. The use of a MAC addressĪ DHCP server (like your router) uses a MAC address to assign an IP address to a network adapter. IP Reservation is one of many uses of the MAC address.

#Mac home network security license#

Specifically, you can’t register your vehicle (and get a new license plate) if it doesn’t have a VIN.

Both are used to identify a car but at different levels and purposes. If MAC is the VIN of a car, then the IP address is the license plate. Once the device is yours, however, it’s a good idea to keep this address secure. It’s not a secret everyone can see it - again, it’s like the VIN of a car, it must be visible. Generally, a device has its MAC on its label. instead of their MAC addresses or the names you give them. For this reason, connected network devices are often identified within the network as the name of the vendor - such as Netgear, Hon Hai, Cisco, etc. MAC addresses are allocated in large groups to hardware vendors.Here are a few examples: Physical address, basic service set identifier (BSSID), Ethernet hardware address (EHA), hardware address, and adapter address. There are many other names for a MAC address.

But considering this is a 48-bit scheme with a total of 281,474,976,710,656 - that’s 281 trillion and then some hundred billion more - possible addresses, it’s safe to say many things more consequential, like humanity or hopefully just the need for the MAC itself, would expire before we have to worry about a MAC shortage.

Eventually, we’ll run out of MAC addressing space.

Take “permanent” with a grain of salt because, just like a VIN, it’s susceptible to modification.

It’s like the vehicle identification number (VIN) of a car. It’s embedded in each networking adapter by the manufacturer. Here are some interesting facts about the MAC address. Generally, each time you appropriately alter a digit or a letter, you’ll get a new MAC. This same address can also appear as d4:fb:6a:7c:31:b4 or D4FB6A7C31B4, depending on what platform or application you use to view it.Īs you might have noticed, MAC is not case-sensitive, but it tends to appear either all lower case or all upper case. If it belongs to an actual device, that’s just a coincidence.) (This is a random address I made up for this post.

#Mac home network security windows#

That said, here is a MAC address as you’d see on a Windows computer: Depending on where you view the address, these groups are separated by colons, hyphens, or nothing at all. This NIC comes as a Wi-Fi adapter, an Ethernet adapter (wired), or a cellular modem.Ī MAC address consists of six groups of two characters (numbers or letters). Your device - be it a computer, a tablet, or a phone - can connect to the Internet because it has a NIC.

So a MAC address - I’ll call it MAC from now on for short - is precisely that, the unique identifier to control the access of a network interface controller (NIC), which we often call a network adapter.

#Mac home network security how to#

How to change the MAC address of a Mac computer.

How to change the MAC address of a Windows computer.

How to change the MAC address of a router.

Reasons you might want to change your MAC.