Editing MAC address (section)

==Notational conventions==
The standard ([[IEEE 802]]) format for printing EUI-48 addresses in human-friendly form is six groups of two [[hexadecimal]] digits, separated by hyphens ({{MACaddr|-}}) in transmission order (e.g. {{MACaddr|01-23-45-67-89-ab}}). This form is also commonly used for EUI-64 (e.g. {{MACaddr|01-23-45-67-89-ab-cd-ef}}).<ref name="eui tutorial" /> Other conventions include six groups of two hexadecimal digits separated by colons (:) (e.g. {{MACaddr|01:23:45:67:89:ab}}), and three groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by dots (.) (e.g. {{MACaddr|0123.4567.89ab}}); again in transmission order.<ref>{{cite web
| url=http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/cisco_secure_access_control_server_for_windows/4.2/configuration/guide/noagent.html#wp1017547
| url-status=dead
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160802102024/http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/net_mgmt/cisco_secure_access_control_server_for_windows/4-2/configuration/guide/acs42_config_guide/noagent.html#wp1010965
| archive-date=2016-08-02
| title=Agentless Host Configuration Scenario
| date=February 2008
| work=Configuration Guide for Cisco Secure ACS 4.2
| publisher=[[Cisco]]
| access-date=2015-09-19
| quote=You can enter the MAC address in the following formats for representing MAC-48 addresses in human-readable form: six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens (-) in transmission order,[...]six groups of two separated by colons (:),[...]three groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by dots (.)...}}
</ref>

===Bit-reversed notation===
The standard notation, also called canonical format, for MAC addresses is written in transmission order with the [[Endianness#Bit endianness|least significant bit of each byte]] transmitted first, and is used in the output of the <code>[[ifconfig]]</code>, <code>[[iproute2|ip address]]</code>, and <code>[[ipconfig]]</code> commands, for example.

However, since [[IEEE 802.3]] (Ethernet) and [[IEEE 802.4]] (Token Bus) send the bytes (octets) over the wire, left-to-right, with the least significant bit in each byte first, while [[IEEE 802.5]] (Token Ring) and [[IEEE 802.6]] (FDDI) send the bytes over the wire with the most significant bit first, confusion may arise when an address in the latter scenario is represented with bits reversed from the canonical representation. For example, an address in canonical form {{MACaddr|12-34-56-78-9A-BC}} would be transmitted over the wire as bits <code>01001000 00101100 01101010 00011110 01011001 00111101</code> in the standard transmission order (least significant bit first). But for Token Ring networks, it would be transmitted as bits <code>00010010 00110100 01010110 01111000 10011010 10111100</code> in most-significant-bit first order. The latter might be incorrectly displayed as {{MACaddr|48-2C-6A-1E-59-3D}}. This is referred to as ''bit-reversed order'', ''non-canonical form'', ''MSB format'', ''IBM format'', or ''Token Ring format''.{{Ref RFC|2469}}