A MAC address is known as the Ethernet hardware address, and it is comprised of 6-bytes. An unique MAC address is assigned to a Network Interface Card (NIC) to communicate with other devices in a network. IEEE is the authority managing MAC Addresses, and each hardware manufacturers must register with IEEE to allocate the MAC Prefix to be used by the vendor. By examining the first few bytes of the MAC Address, one can determine manufacturer of the NIC hardware.
Each byte of the MAC address is usually separated by a colon (:), but you may either use a colon or a dash (-) to separate the bytes.
The first 3 or more bytes of the MAC address is assigned to a manufacturer, and the manufacturer arbitarily assigns additional bytes to uniquely assign NIC cards. Here is a few examples of MAC prefixes assigned to vendors.
| MAC Prefix | Vendor |
| 00:00:00 | Xerox |
| 00:06:5B | Dell |
| 00:03:93 | Apple |
We have a FREE Restful MAC Address Lookup API that you can use in your application.
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