Which address does an NIC use when deciding whether to accept a frame?

The address used is Destination MAC address. (MAC address) means media access control address; it is an exceptional identifier given to a (NIC) network interface controller for use as a network address in communications inside a network part.

It is usually made use of in major IEEE 802 connecting technologies, which include WI-FI, Bluetooth, and Ethernet. Inside the (OSI) Open Systems Interconnection network design, MAC addresses are made use of in the MAC procedure under a layer of the data link layer. As classically denoted, MAC can be identified as six collections of dual hexadecimal digits, differentiated by hyphens, colons, or short of a separator.

However, MAC addresses are the low stage fundamentals that allow your Ethernet-based network function. Every network card has a distinct MAC address. Packets that are directed to the Ethernet are usually from a MAC address and forwarded to another MAC address. There are also special MAC addresses like ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff.

The NIC uses the destination MAC address.The moment that a router is connected to a device, it will automatically know what the destination MAC address is. Take note that if the device is not directly connected to the router, you can expect that there will be no destination address that will be retrieved.

For devices that make use of or are separated from other routers will require the use of IP addresses to coordinate with the devices properly. It should be noted that frames and packets are different from each other. The packet is the network layer located at layer 3. The frame is located at layer 2.