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I just wanted clarification on what exactly PPP is and why it does not have a MAC address due to having seen that under a response to a question of how routers transverse packets to their destinations.

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  • MAC addresses are used by the IEEE data-link protocols, but other data-link protocols use other or no addressing. Frame relay uses DLCI, ATM uses VPI/VCI, PPP and HDLC do not use addressing, etc.
    – Ron Maupin ♦
    Mar 11 at 23:27

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PPP is a data link layer protocol that's designed to run on top of a simple serial link as physical layer. Since there are exactly two nodes on that point-to-point link, no addressing is required.

The PPP header does have an 8-bit address field but it's not used anywhere (always 0xff).

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  • Ok thanks for helping me understand.
    – N.C.
    Mar 13 at 5:28
  • It is quite literally in the name: Point-to-Point Protocol.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Apr 1 at 10:55

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