MAC addressing in Computer Networks - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Understanding MAC Addressing

📖 Scenario: You are learning about how devices on a local network identify each other using MAC addresses. Each device has a unique MAC address that helps in communication within the network.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple list of devices with their MAC addresses, set a filter to find devices from a specific manufacturer, and then extract those devices' MAC addresses.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called devices with device names as keys and their MAC addresses as values.

Create a variable called manufacturer_prefix that holds the first three pairs of a MAC address to filter devices.

Use a dictionary comprehension called filtered_devices to select devices whose MAC addresses start with manufacturer_prefix.

Add a final step to create a list called filtered_mac_addresses containing only the MAC addresses from filtered_devices.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Network administrators use MAC addresses to identify and manage devices on a local network.

💼 Career

Understanding MAC addressing is essential for roles in IT support, network administration, and cybersecurity.

1

Create the devices dictionary

Create a dictionary called devices with these exact entries: 'Laptop': '00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E', 'Smartphone': '00:1A:2B:6F:7G:8H', 'Printer': '11:22:33:44:55:66', 'Tablet': '00:1A:2B:9J:0K:1L'.

Computer Networks

# Create the devices dictionary with device names and MAC addresses
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces to create a dictionary. Each device name is a key, and its MAC address is the value as a string.

2

Set the manufacturer prefix

Create a variable called manufacturer_prefix and set it to the string '00:1A:2B' to represent the manufacturer part of the MAC address.

Computer Networks

devices = {
    'Laptop': '00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E',
    'Smartphone': '00:1A:2B:6F:7G:8H',
    'Printer': '11:22:33:44:55:66',
    'Tablet': '00:1A:2B:9J:0K:1L'
}
# Create the manufacturer_prefix variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the string '00:1A:2B' to the variable manufacturer_prefix.

3

Filter devices by manufacturer prefix

Use a dictionary comprehension to create a new dictionary called filtered_devices that includes only the devices from devices whose MAC addresses start with manufacturer_prefix. Use for device, mac in devices.items() and check if mac.startswith(manufacturer_prefix).

Computer Networks

devices = {
    'Laptop': '00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E',
    'Smartphone': '00:1A:2B:6F:7G:8H',
    'Printer': '11:22:33:44:55:66',
    'Tablet': '00:1A:2B:9J:0K:1L'
}
manufacturer_prefix = '00:1A:2B'
# Create filtered_devices dictionary using dictionary comprehension
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use dictionary comprehension with for device, mac in devices.items() and if mac.startswith(manufacturer_prefix).

4

Extract filtered MAC addresses

Create a list called filtered_mac_addresses that contains only the MAC addresses from filtered_devices. Use a list comprehension to get the values from filtered_devices.

Computer Networks

devices = {
    'Laptop': '00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E',
    'Smartphone': '00:1A:2B:6F:7G:8H',
    'Printer': '11:22:33:44:55:66',
    'Tablet': '00:1A:2B:9J:0K:1L'
}
manufacturer_prefix = '00:1A:2B'
filtered_devices = {device: mac for device, mac in devices.items() if mac.startswith(manufacturer_prefix)}
# Create filtered_mac_addresses list with MAC addresses from filtered_devices
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use list comprehension to get all MAC addresses from filtered_devices.values().