Re: MAC addresses in router vs Access Point
- From: Albert Manfredi <bert22306@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 11:18:01 -0700 (PDT)
On May 1, 12:42 pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ale wrote:
why does an access point have 2 MAC addresses (one WLAN, one LAN)
while a router has only one even if it has lan ports and wan ports?
Somewhere back in the origins of ethernet is the ability to
assign MAC addresses either to ports or hosts.
The only one I know to commonly apply them to hosts is Sun,
which used to put the address in ROM on the CPU board which
may or may not have an ethernet interface. That address was
then used on all ports on that host. (Sun machines were
often configured as routers with more than one ethernet port.)
That was also my reaction to the original post. It is possible that
the router might have only one MAC address assigned to it, if it
follows that somewhat iffy (IMO) Sun philosophy you mention.
Note this, however. Access Points are not necessarily combined with a
router function. Therefore, the two interfaces of an access point
*could* exist within the same network (IP subnet). Whereas the two
interfaces of the router would, by definition, each be in its own IP
subnet.
Therefore, it's acceptable to assign just one MAC address to a router,
but not to the access point.
Another minor point is that sometimes switches use the MAC address of
one of their interfaces as the MAC of the entire box, if a single MAC
address to identify the box is needed. I'm too lazy to look it up
right now, but doesn't RSTP do this, for example?
Bert
.
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