MAC addresses are primarily assigned by device manufacturers, and are therefore often referred to as the burned-in address, or as an Ethernet hardware address, hardware address, or physical address. As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens, colons, or without a separator. Within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, MAC addresses are used in the medium access control protocol sublayer of the data link layer. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. When finished, type Exit then press enter to close the command window.Label of a UMTS router with MAC addresses for LAN and WLAN modulesĪ media access control address ( MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment.It is also possible to determine the MAC address of a NIC with the ipconfig /all command. Which returns quite a bit of other information as well:.
At the prompt in the open command Window: Type getmac /v: The MAC address, labeled "Physical Address," will be displayed in the form xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx:.(Click Start, Run, Type CMD, then right-click CMD.exe on the menu, and click Run as Administrator)
To locate the MAC address of a NIC in Windows, follow these steps: Issue 2: Locating the MAC Address of a NIC in Windows The instructions in this article explain how to do so. You may find it useful in some situations to determine the MAC address of a NIC in Windows.
This address can be used by routers and switches to control access to a network.