MAC or I P address?

BennyTheMan

I am watching a helpful video about how packets are transferred over the Internet. It shows how the header gets modified at each hop. Can someone please tell me if "hardware address" refers to MAC addresses or IP addresses.
Here is the video
https://youtu.be/nomyRJehhnM
If no one responds I totally understand
But if someone could it would be greatly appreciated
Benny

Sy Kosys

Yes, hardware address refers to the MAC, as this is a unique address for any and all network cards/adapters and switchports. Think of it as hard coded or a hard/solid thing. In Cisco documentation, you'll also see this referenced as a BIA (Burned-in address).

A "software" address is by contrast a dynamic variable, an IP address in this case.