What are the basic functions of Network Interface Card?
You will need a way of connecting to the network. If it uses, say an ethernet then youll have an ethernet card in your computer – this is the physical thing that the line runs from your computer to the network – now you are connected. The administrator will set up your permissions and you’ll be able to do on the network what he/she decides.Aditionally, the administrator can know what you were doing and using while on the network. There are boards coming out over the past few years that have the NIC built right into the motherboard – mine does – its an Intel board.
The primary function of a network interface card (NIC) is to provide a physical link to a computer network. This connection allows computers to communicate with servers, as well as other computers on the network. Each NIC has a unique serial number, which is called a MAC address. Every computer connected to the network is required to have a unique MAC address that is stored on the network interface card. If you are building a home network or utilizing broadband Web access, your NIC connects you to the outside world.
The NIC will take the digital information stored in memory locations or registers and convert it to the proper physical signal that is required by the physical connection. It will also take the electrical, optical or radio signals and convert them to digital information that can be stored in registers and memory locations. Some NICs will also operate at Layer 2 and will implement the Ethernet protocol which will allow the decision to be made to either pass a frame that has its MAC address to higher layer protocols, or discard the frame if the destination MAC address is not the one that it uses. The exception would be if the NIC was allowd to operate in promiscuous mode which is required by such applications as Network Analysers or Sniffers, then all frames will be passed to the sniffer application.
