>i know ip is the acesss point to the internet and mac is computer id. but
that is all i know.
No, you think you know that, but your description is outright wrong. If you
thought you know that, then you are using a bad source of information or you
are misinterpreting it and reaching wrong conclusions.
When somebody says "MAC" or "IP" he usually means "MAC address" or "IP
address". Both are addresses (that is, identifiers), the difference is that
they are addresses at different levels of abstraction. Referenced to the
TCP/IP model (use a search engine for details): IP addresses belong to the IP
protocol and operate at the Internet layer; MAC addresses belong to the link
level (for example, Ethernet). IP addresses identify the source and
destination of a packet as it travels through Internet (but NAT can rewrite
either address). MAC addresses identify the source and destination of a link
level frame (and the IP packet it contains) only within a link segment (for
example, only within an Ethernet segment).
The first hop in the connection to your computer to the Internet backbone is
likely a Ethernet or IEEE 802.11 link. If that is the case, all devices
within that network have a MAC address.
When a host sends a packet or a router receivers a packet to forward, it must
send the packet using the link layer, but the link layer is usually unaware
of IP addresses; it must forward the packet using a MAC address (the MAC
address of the next hop router or host). The relation between MAC addresses
and IP addresses is usually handled by ARP (address resolution protocol). You
can see the ARP table of your computer using the “arp -n” command as
root.
Here is an example: Suppose you connect to the Internet using Ethernet or
IEEE 802.11. When you try to open, say, “example.org” using your browser,
your computer first resolves the host name into an IP addresses using DNS
(for that, it already needs to use IP), then resolves that IP addresses into
a MAC address using ARP, then it exchanges information with the server using
HTTP on top of TCP/IP on top of Ethernet. The IP packets from your computer
to the server have the IP address of the server as the destination and are at
first contained within an Ethernet frame, whose destination address is the
MAC address of your home router or modem (note that the destinations are
different).
The home router or modem receives the Ethernet frame. The Ethernet framing is
discarded; the IP packet is kept and is forwarded to the next hop using the
link-level framing and possibly MAC address that matches the outgoing
connection from your home. For example, if the outgoing connection is a
coaxial link, it is likely that the corresponding physical and link-level
protocol is DOCSIS, if it is a telephone link, then the corresponding
protocol must be a type of DSL. At that point, the link level framing and MAC
addresses of your computer and router are already irrelevant for that IP
packet as those MAC addresses are only relevant within your home network, but
the IP addresses of your computer and the destination server are used to
forward the packet correctly until it reaches its destination.
All communication within the Internet use IP and therefore IP addresses. On
the other hand, not all link level protocols use MAC addresses. For example,
PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) doesn't uses MAC addresses.
You can and should search for more information in the Internet. Computer
networking is complex. It should not be taken lightly if you will use it to
deploy a production system; you must learn the relevant part throughly (it is
not possible to learn it all). It is much better to learn from a book than to
learn from sparse information alone (tutorials, manuals, and so on). You can
use both a book and sparse information. There is The TCP/IP Guide which is
available online at no cost. If you are really interested in networking, then
read that book or a book similar to that one.
It seems to me like you need much more knowledge before deploying a server.
If you only want to learn, you can obtain the same experience using a virtual
machine in your own computer.
