MAC Address

MAC address is a unique physical address assigned to a network interface controller (NIC).

A MAC address is represented in a six byte hexadecimal format, xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx. The MAC address is divided into the following parts:

• Bits 47–24: Organization Unique Identifier (OUI) assigned by IEEE. (Example: 00:80:2d)
• Bits 23–12: Chassis ID
• Bit 11-9: Type of MAC address in the switch

  If all zeroes (000), it is a port address (physical MAC address); otherwise it is a VLAN address (virtual MAC address)

• Bits 8-0: 512 port MAC addresses
• Bits 11–0: 3584 VLAN MAC addresses

Parts of MAC Address