--- title: Fibre Channel Addressing « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev description: Fibre Channel (FC) is a LAN technology that correctly handles data-link-layer addressing by not requiring FC1 (data link) addresses at all. Because every FC... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/fibre-channel-addressing-ipspace-net-blog-565bjbio4 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Fibre Channel Addressing « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev og:description: Fibre Channel (FC) is a LAN technology that correctly handles data-link-layer addressing by not requiring FC1 (data link) addresses at all. Because every FC... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/fibre-channel-addressing-ipspace-net-blog-565bjbio4 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/565BjbIO4.png og:image:alt: Fibre Channel Addressing « ipSpace.net blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Fibre Channel Addressing « ipSpace.net blog **[ipSpace.net Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Fibre Channel (FC) is a LAN technology that correctly handles data-link-layer addressing by not requiring FC1 (data link) addresses at all. Because every FC switch operates as an FC2 (network layer) forwarder and all links between FC nodes and switches are point-to-point, there is no need for layer-2 addressing. The FC standards themselves use the term 'routing' to describe FC packet forwarding, making FC switches equivalent to layer-3 routers in IP terminology — despite debates from FC engineers who assumed bridging due to the absence of dual source/destination address pairs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why don't Fibre Channel switches need data link layer addresses? Fibre Channel switches don't need data link layer (FC1) addresses because every link between an FC node and an FC switch is point-to-point. All FC switches forward packets based on FC2 addresses, which is the FC network-layer equivalent. Since there are no shared-medium segments requiring MAC-style addressing, FC1 addressing is simply unnecessary. _Network engineers working with FC infrastructure find the protocol stack breakdowns on daily.dev useful when defending design decisions._ ### How do Fibre Channel protocol layers map to the OSI model? FC0 is the physical layer. FC1 (transmission protocol) handles encoding, error control, and framing — equivalent to the OSI data link layer. FC2 (signaling protocol) provides end-to-end transport, mapping to OSI network and transport layers. FC3 provides common services like multicast and hunt groups, roughly equivalent to a session layer. FC4 is the application layer. _Engineers bridging storage networking and IP networking track these protocol comparisons on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Networking and the Internet, from First Principles · Faza](https://daily.dev/posts/networking-and-the-internet-from-first-principles-faza-0ciffzefa) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/fibre-channel-addressing-ipspace-net-blog-565bjbio4) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Fibre Channel Addressing « ipSpace.net blog","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/fibre-channel-addressing-ipspace-net-blog-565bjbio4","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/fibre-channel-addressing-ipspace-net-blog-565bjbio4"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:55:58.656Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:30:52.404Z","description":"Fibre Channel (FC) is a LAN technology that correctly handles data-link-layer addressing by not requiring FC1 (data link) addresses at all. 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