Re: Difference between?

From: Arkady Frenkel (arkadyf_at_hotmailxdotx.com)
Date: 10/17/04 

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 13:19:30 +0200

Another argument against such definition : existance of wan interface or
loopback interface ( second one in the case when even loopback adapter not
installed but network adapter do installed ).
Arkady

"Alun Jones [MSFT]" <alunj@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:urpMkHtsEHA.1604@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> "Eugene Gershnik" <gershnik@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:%23paXYRosEHA.1408@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> > James Jenkins wrote:
> >> Hi - what exactly is the difference between a Network Interface and a
> >> Network Adapter
> >
> > According to MSDN
> >
> >
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/iphlp/iphlp/managing_interfaces.asp
> >
> > "There is a one-to-one correspondence between the interfaces and
adapters
> > on a given computer. An interface is an IP-level abstraction, whereas an
> > adapter is a datalink-level abstraction."
> >
> > Note that this distinction is MS specific.
>
> I've put in a request for some clarification on that, because, unless I'm
> missing some piece of information, that doesn't quite sound right.
>
> The network adapter is, as the article says, a datalink-layer
representation
> of a network location (destination / source). There is a one-to-one
> correspondence between the network adapter and the physical card (NIC -
> Network Interface Card) in your machine, although it's theoretically
> conceivable that you might have an ethernet card that has multiple
ethernet
> MAC addresses, and which would appear as multiple network adapters. I
can't
> imagine why you would do that, but because it's possible, I thought I'd
> mention it, just in case someone comes along to pick some nits.
>
> The network interface, again as the article says, is an IP-layer
> representation of a network location. _Usually_, there is one IP address
> assigned to each NIC, but on several server systems, more than one IP can
be
> assigned to the same NIC, so that sites can be separated by IP address,
and
> still run on the same computer with a single NIC.
>
> This distinction is common, I would even go so far as to say "usual",
> industry-wide. Packets come off the wire, destined for a specific
ethernet
> MAC address. The card that has that MAC address picks up the packet, and
> the network driver looks at the packet, strips off the Ethernet header,
and
> passes the remaining data to the next layer up - the IP layer, in this
case.
> The IP layer looks to check that the address matches one of its endpoints,
> and passes the data up to the next layer, and so on. Because of the
> separation of layers, most of the time, each layer doesn't really care
about
> the layer above or below it, except as necessary to exchange data.
>
> For further research, search on "OSI seven-layer model".
>
> Alun.
> ~~~~
>
>

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