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Re: [RAM] Re: Ramblings about "locator"

	As someone who builds Ethernet switches these days,
my take is that the IEEE MAC address (either 802 or 1394)
in an Ethernet frame is an address (i.e. neither identifier,
nor locator).

I disagree. I think it is just as overloaded as an IP address. MAC addresses are used as serial numbers in many products. That is an ID if I ever thought there was one. And a MAC address is certainly used to find (that means "where", and "where" means location) an ethernet attached station in a L2 switched network.

And what about how MAC addresses are used in IS-IS and in IPv6 stateless auto-configuration. In these cases, it's purely an ID.

And for the old guys, remember OSI and what an L1 area in IS-IS was used for? To route system-ids which were based on MAC addresses. So in this case, the MAC was a locator.

Dino

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