> In truth, that really is just complicating things. Now your operating system has to first look up the ethernet address of 192.168.1.1, find out it's 11:22:33:44:55:66, and finally generate a packet with destination ethernet address 11:22:33:44:55:66 and destination IP address 10.1.1.1. 192.168.1.1 is just a pointless intermediate step.
Bollocks. The abstraction allowed by using an IP address instead of a MAC address is essential, considering that IP addresses are dynamic (even when statically configures, devices can and do get replaced) and MAC adresses are set at the factory. Can you imagine updating the routing table of every device in your network because you had to replace a core router and the MAC address was different? It’s the equivalent of publishing your website on an IP address instead of a DNS hostname...
* yes, I know MAC addresses can be configured by software in many devices, but that’s even more of a hack than using arp to determine a MAC address.
Bollocks. The abstraction allowed by using an IP address instead of a MAC address is essential, considering that IP addresses are dynamic (even when statically configures, devices can and do get replaced) and MAC adresses are set at the factory. Can you imagine updating the routing table of every device in your network because you had to replace a core router and the MAC address was different? It’s the equivalent of publishing your website on an IP address instead of a DNS hostname...
* yes, I know MAC addresses can be configured by software in many devices, but that’s even more of a hack than using arp to determine a MAC address.