Network design with MAC address

My understanding is that the domains and IP addresses are designed to facilitate the forwarding of internet traffic and management of the address space so that the physical MAC addresses, linked to the network cards, do not have to be used outside the local LAN.

The software running in switches keeps track of the MAC address or the physical address of the network card in its MAC address tables, linking the MAC address to a physical port on the switch.

You would not like to duplicate the low level functions embedded in switches and move them to software applications, it is easier to work at the logical address level, using IP addresses and subnets.

TCP/IP traffic analyzers and packet sniffers are designed to filter individual packets based on the MAC address in the packet headers. Therefore, you should be able to program an application which deals with MAC addresses, if you have all the APIs and the knowledge, if you are sure you are not re-inventing the wheel.

As Toivo explained mac addresses are in layer 2 . As a layer 3 protocol if you are using TCP/IP then you are required to enter a static ip or get one from a dhcp server . You are required , full stop . But yes you can work with mac addresses . Either you manually enter the command from each machine to learn its mac address or you run an ip scanner which also reports the mac address of every network interface card it discovers . ( e.g. ip scan , ip tools ..etc ) After you note down and match every ip to a mac address ( this is where it may force you to use static ips ..to have a one to one relation between an ip and a mac address ..If you use dynamic ip , dhcp that is ..a mac address can have a new matching ip every time it asks the dhcp ...) you manually configure your switches , bridges or other layer 2 equipment . This is not recommended as toivo explains. Manually configuring / matching layer 2 addresses to layer 3 protocol strategies is a laborious and "futule " process when the number of nics become too many in the network . When it comes to WAN ...as its name implies ...and you start using routers ..you are in layer 3 . the router does the translation for you from ip to mac addresses . The reverse process is just not meaningful.....is not engineering at least.

which protocol do you want to use besides TCP/IP?

The old NetBIOS protocol works in a non TCP/IP environment.

Why in heavens name would you want to reinvent the wheel.

Lee

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