Switching and Routing: why is knowing MAC important

[adsuther1]

Hi,

When pinging a device via IP address why is it important to know the MAC address? Why not just reach device via IP address?

i.e. I want to reach a server with IP = 23.3.4.4; why not just reach the sever with out having to discover the MAC address?

Why is having the MAC address essential to reaching a device? I know it is net 101 to get the MAC, but why?

cheers,

Anthony

[balaji.bandi]

keith explain in a better way :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xkvyZnhj4

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Because an IP is a logical address at L3 (like your name).  To reach it, you must pass through L2 (like your phone number).

A MAC address is bound to physical media (hence its name) (see https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/MAC_address for more info.)

[Leo Laohoo]

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@adsuther1 wrote:
Why not just reach device via IP address?

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Because a device cannot get an IP address assigned without a MAC address.