The MAC address is a hardware address that uniquely identifies each node of a network.
The address has the format: xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx. The first 3 octets of the address is the manufacturer's Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI). For example, Intel is assigned 00-AA-00 and 00-00-C9. The last half of the address is unique to the adapter.
In IEEE 802 networks, the Data Link Control (DLC) layer of the OSI Reference Model is divided into two sublayers: the Logical Link Control (LLC) layer and the Media Access Control (MAC) layer. The MAC layer interfaces directly with the network media. Consequently, each different type of network media requires a different MAC layer.
