Is this statement correct?

agentpenguin · February 19, 2022

"Wireless Access Points (WAP) forward data based on MAC addresses since it's only use is within a local network." I'm trying to understand the difference between routers and WAPs and I just want to make sure I got this correct. Also from what I understand routers forward data based on IP addresses and modern routers come with a WAP built in.

brwainer · February 19, 2022

12 minutes ago, agentpenguin said:

"Wireless Access Points (WAP) forward data based on MAC addresses since it's only use is within a local network." I'm trying to understand the difference between routers and WAPs and I just want to make sure I got this correct. Also from what I understand routers forward data based on IP addresses and modern routers come with a WAP built in.

A router (most pure form of a router) makes decisions based on the destination IP address, aka Layer 3.

A switch makes decisions based on the destination MAC address, aka Layer 2.

A bridge does the same thing as a switch, the difference is that a bridge is purely in software while a switch does the main forwarding via hardware (a "switch chip" or "ASIC").

A Wireless Access Point is a bridge where one or more of the "ports" is a wireless interface, which may have many clients attached to it.

A SOHO (small office, home office) router, which is what "router" means to most people, combines the functionality of a router (connection between the WAN/Internet port and the LAN), switch (the single LAN "port" of the router portion connects to the switch, which then often has 4 ethernet ports the outside panel), a bridge (the LAN of the router is actually a bridge with three or more interfaces - the router LAN, the switch uplink, and the wireless radio(s)), and a WAP (the wireless radios that are part of the LAN bridge).

LIGISTX · February 19, 2022

5 minutes ago, agentpenguin said:

"Wireless Access Points (WAP) forward data based on MAC addresses since it's only use is within a local network." I'm trying to understand the difference between routers and WAPs and I just want to make sure I got this correct. Also from what I understand routers forward data based on IP addresses and modern routers come with a WAP built in.

Yes, yes, and no.

So... Modem Routers are modems with routers hardwired to them. A modem takes a public IP address (the one you get from your ISP) and allows your router to talk out to the ISP. Think of modems as doing literally nothing but verifying your pay for internet and your ISP uses your modem to do this verification. Its not exactly the correct analogy, but, for the sake of this, that is likely fine.

A router is what takes that public IP and allows multiple local devices to talk out to the internet and receive answers. A router will direct traffic from internal devices based on their MAC address out to the internet where public IP addresses are used (when you go to google.com, google.com is sent to a DNS server, which returns an IP address, which is then what you are actually connected to... humans are just not good at remembering totally random arbitrary strings of numbers, so we use website addresses which DNS. then turns into an IP address). A switch (or AP, a wireless AP is literally just a switch but uses wifi instead of a wire as the physical data transport) uses MAC addresses since the devices are within the same subnet, same as your router.

Things change a bit if you are not running a normal home network.... if you have multiple subnets, like say 192.168.1.1 AND another subnet for say your homelab or NVR IP cameras that is on 192.168.1.50, that communication must traverse the router, and that will be done via IP. But for most normal home networks which are "flat" and only have a single IP, all internal LAN traffic is routed via MAC addresses. When you go out to the internet, the data is tagged by the router with your local device's MAC (or is it IP? I forget...) that requested it, so when the answer is returned, it knows where to send that data.

BUT again, modem/routers don't "come with WAP built in", many do, but that is not like a guaranteed default thing. Most routers have wifi (WAP), but that is not a guarantee just like a modem/router isn't guaranteed to have wifi.