What is the difference between a physical address and MAC address in networking?
Somewhere I have read that both physical address and MAC address are the same,which is exactly the same attached with the NIC of a machine. And also in some other place I have read that a router is forwarding data packets based on the information such as Physical and Logical addresses available from a data packet. I have the knowledge that a MAC address will never go beyond the LAN's gateway. Then how come the other routers collect the information regarding my MAC address from a data packet send by me?
Am I supposed to believe that physical address is different from MAC address when comes into networking?
Answer
Physical address and MAC address are indeed the same. They are used to communicate between devices on Ethernet networks. When you send a request to a remote host's IP address (access a website for instance) your computer sends that request to your LAN's gateway (your router) and it uses its physical (MAC) address as the destination of the message but the logical (IP) address of the host for its final destination. The router then forwards that message onward and knows who to return the reply to.