What is a MAC IP address?

[shoob0x]

Is it different from a normal IP address? Also,how do I change my IP?

 

[Pinhedd]

There is no such thing as a "MAC IP address", it's just a "MAC address". The MAC address is what identifies your network card to all of the other network devices that it is directly connected to on a local area network. The MAC address is also called the physical address. Each network card has its own unique MAC address; it can be changed but there is rarely any need to do so. The IP address is what is used by the TCP/IP protocol stack to route data between hosts and across networks. The IP address is also called the "virtual address".

 

[ahnilated]

Yes, a mac address is different than your ip address. Depends, are you talking about your router, or computer or what? That would help us tell you how to change your ip address.

 

[Eximo]

A MAC address is the Hexadecimal value written into the firmware of any IP capable device that uniquely identifies that device to any IP network. If you run ipconfig /all in a command prompt you can see your current IP addresses and Mac address for each device in your system.

Your IP address can be changed in many places, and you have several. An internal IP address on your local network is usually handed out by your Router or Modem depending on your setup. Your Router/Modem has an IP address that faces the internet, provided by your ISP Dynamic Host Control Protocol.

Some can be controlled through Windows (your local IP), others are outside of your control. Though you can mask your IP through proxy servers (basically pretending to be on another ISP in essence) and there is MAC address spoofing software out there, but there aren't legitimate uses for these last two things.

 

[shoob0x]

Yes, a mac address is different than your ip address. Depends, are you talking about your router, or computer or what? That would help us tell you how to change your ip address.

I should have phrased that better. A website mentioned a "MAC IP" and I have never heard of such, how would I go about changing the mac address on my modem/router and is IP different for,every computer connected to that network?

 

[thx1138v2]

Two different things. You seem to know what an IP address is. A unique MAC address is hard coded into each and every networking card/device so that it ties to a physical device.

How you change your IP address depends on how you get it. It can be specified in your network setup or it can be assigned at run time by a DHCP server at either your router, ISP, or others. Most setups today use a DHCP server to obtain an IP address on the fly.

See How TCP/IP works at the following site. It is a good not-too-technical description.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/page/lan

 

[Pooneil]

Some routers have a MAC cloning tool that will grab the MAC of one of the computers and present it as the MAC on the WAN facing side of the router. This was used when some ISP's only allowed one computer without a router in between. MAC cloning would fool the ISP into thinking the router was the computer. AFAIK that is not a restriction in the U.S. any more, but if it is, it is widely ignored. You can change the MAC in some routers but not in others.

The router WAN side will get a public IP from the ISP. The LAN side will have a fixed private IP and a DHCP service that assigns a different private IP to each LAN user. The routers network address translation (NAT) service connects the LAN to the WAN in a way that is transparent to the casual user.