Switches

Network switches are essential networking devices that operate at the of the TCP/IP model. They allow multiple computers to connect to a network through a single node and therefore reduce the requirement. This is especially important in larger networks. They are designed to efficiently manage data traffic within local area networks (LANs) by intelligently forwarding data frames based on .



A MAC address table is a critical component within network switches. It is used to store and manage and their associated network interfaces. When a switch receives a data frame from a device on one of its ports, it examines the in the . The switch records this MAC address and associates it with the port through which the frame was received. This process is known as , and as more devices communicate with the switch, it continues to build its MAC address table.



Media Access Control (MAC) addresses are unique identifiers assigned to in computing devices. They operate at the Data Link Layer (Layer 2) of the OSI model. A MAC address is , typically represented as 12 hexadecimal digits (0-9 and A-F) grouped into pairs, separated by colons or hyphens. For example, a MAC address might look like "". Each MAC address is globally unique, meaning that no two in the world should have the same MAC address. The first 24 bits of a MAC address represent the , which identifies the manufacturer or organization that produced the network interface card (NIC). The remaining 24 bits are used to uniquely identify the specific NIC within that manufacturer's allocation.

Keywords

network interfaces | mac (media access control) addresses | 48 bits in length | data link layer | mac address learning | 00:1a:2b:3c:4d:5e | oui | source mac address | wiring | mac (media access control) addresses | ethernet frame header | network interfaces |