cam table vs mac table. Mac address table overflow is a security vulnerability which attackers exploit by overflooding the CAM table to sniff the traffic. cam table vs mac table

 
Mac address table overflow is a security vulnerability which attackers exploit by overflooding the CAM table to sniff the trafficcam table vs mac table  A router can operate as a switch

Failopen mode: the switch starts behaving as a hub and broadcasts the incoming traffic through all the ports in the network. چند روز پیش یه چیز جالبی توی یکی از ویدیو ها به چشمم خورد، اونم این بود که مدرس ویدیو اومد گفت cam table و mac address به لحاظ فنی با هم تفاوت دارند ولی خب خیلی خیلی مشابه هم دیگه هستند پس اگر کسی هم بگه این دوتا. MAC Address Table | CAM table Working | MAC Flooding | Defend against MAC Attacks #cybersecurity #cybercommunity #macspoofing #macflooding #macattack #CAM #c. What do routers reference in order to make packet forwarding decisions? A. bbbb. and no entry in the arp-cache. The CAM table is one of the fundamental operations of a switch. If an entry does exist, it will then examine the destination MAC address to see if it has an entry for it. Each CAM table lookup is based on a hash key associated with a destination MAC address and VLAN ID. In your local network, you use the forwarding table to get the other hosts mac addresses and send them the packets. However cut-through switches wait until a few more bytes of the frame have been evaluated before they decide whether to forward or drop the packet. 4. The MAC destination is learned by the switch with ARP or Flooding. From the command line, issue the appropriate command: CatOS devices: show cam dynamic. PVST+ uses 802. Term. Something most people don’t realize is that there is a limited amount of MAC addresses that a network switch can store in its MAC address table, and this can be exploited. Another possible cause of flooding can be overflow of the switch forwarding table. •Switch is then in Fail-Open mode and broadcasts all frames, allowing the attacker to capture those frames. . 1 Answer. level 2. That would include both wired and wireless interfaces. Advanced hardware is required to support IGMP snooping. 3. The entry recorded into the CAM table includes the port number, the frame arrived on, and the source MAC address associated with the frame, and also the timestamp for the frame's arrival. It is a binding between a MAC address, VLAN and a port number on the switch. X. The CAM is a specific type of hardware memory with a unique principle of operation and usage while MAC table is simply a data structure. Click the card to flip 👆. Every switch has a pool of mac-addreses for internal allocation for its processes. 47dd. z. MAC address table, also known as Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table is a table that switches use to forward packets at layer 2. Dynamic entries are automatically erased after being present in the table for a certain period of time (specified by the command mac-address-table age-time). CAMs compare search data against a table of stored data and return the address of the matching data 1. This specialised data structure makes it possible for. 1. CAM stands for Content Addressable Memory. A switch builds its MAC. Hi, Looking at this example , VLan 1 need to communicate with Vlan 3 at layer-3, here is the process. A "CAM table" tells you what is the technical nature of this table - a content-addressable memory, or a cache, that performs. The source address of every frame passing through the switch is updated in the CAM table. The SW6's MAC table contains the SW7 interfaces' MAC addresses. In more recent Cisco IOS versions, the syntax has changed to use the keywords mac address-table (first hyphen omitted). tables have fixed sizes, so they can only store a certain number of entries. 2. In the static option, we have to add the MAC addresses in the CAM table manually. Routers/PC's have the arp entry for all other connected PC's on the L2 switch. How does the dynamically-learned MAC address feature function? A. The CAM table is divided into "instances" that store the MAC addresses of the different VLANs. Switching table is a Layer 2 table while the Routing Table is a Layer 3 table. Total Mac Addresses : 3Total Mac Addresses for this criterion: 5. Ya that should be the case ideally. I checked by logging into the Router. The memory operation is performed with a single operation instead of per entry. 4900M#show mac address-table count MAC Entries for all vlans: Dynamic Unicast Address Count: 8507 Static Unicast Address (User-defined) Count: 130 Static Unicast Address (System-defined) Count: 18 Total Unicast MAC Addresses In Use: 8655 Total Unicast MAC Addresses Available:. CAM Table Stores:Ethernet addresses, also known as MAC (Media Access Control) addresses, are 6 bytes or 48 bits in length, typically written in hexadecimal form. This requires the CPU and involves the ARP Input process. this video, Keith Barker covers CAM table overflow attacks. This guide will use the term CAM table moving forward. In the case of Layer 2 switching tables, the switch must find an exact match to a destination MAC address or the switch floods the packet out all ports in the VLAN. I do see the firewall MAC on the switch from the inside port and management ports. D. For example, if you have 1000 devices connected. With IGMP snooping, the switch intercepts IGMP messages from the host itself and updates its MAC table accordingly. Most Voted. The switch adds a device MAC address in the CAM table only when it receives a frame from that device on any of its port. g. CAM Table B. If the ARP requests are for the same IP, due to the ARP table overflowing frequently, the switch should rate. Port CPU mean, that the mac-address is assigned by CPU and is an internal allocation for some internal process. It is composed of the IP address and its MAC ADDRESS. CAM Table的全名是Content-addressable Memory Table,也就是大家所熟知的Mac table,主要是用於二層的網路通訊. Macof. show ethernet-switching table The results show only interfaces for the Virtual Chassis master, although there are some ports connected on the VC slave. 2; however, that OID actually is for the mac-address table in the switch. What is difference between cam table and mac table?Finally the command you would use to verify the maximum MAC addresses a switch would allocate in its CAM table is sh mac address-table count or sh mac-address-table count. CAM stands for Content Addressable Memory. 2. a18b. The routing table is used to find out if a packet should be delivered locally, or routed to some network interface using a known gateway address. Configure aging time by entering a value in seconds. 0. 3. Share. Links:NX-OS: Default mac-address timeout: 30 min (1800 secs) Default arp timeout: 25 min (1500 secs) with the following note: The ARP timeout should be less than the MAC address table aging timer, so the ARP updates prevent entries from timing out of the MAC address table. By default, MAC address learning is enabled on all interfaces and VLANs on the router. Following images shows a Switch's MAC address table before and after flooding attack. Using this logic, If switch 2 is connected to switch 1 using interface f0/3 on switch 1, then all the MAC addresses of devices connected to switch 2 will show up in switch 1’s CAM table as being mapped to f0/3. Let's say there are two PCs, PC A and PC B. It will simply update its MAC address table with the location of the most recent frame arriving with the duplicate MAC address. You cannot configure separate MAC table aging times for specific VLANs. typical commands: show arp. This could lead to a man-in-the-middle-attack. Larger CAM tables like 32K are more standard for enterprise and some larger distribution switches will allow for 64K or higher. Content Addressable Memory (CAM) Table Overflow is a Layer 2 attack on a switch. STEP2-. Hi,Ayub! There is a slight difference. Hello Dyep, the aging time is the timer that decides how long a non speaking MAC address is stored in the CAM table before purging it. For any matching results, CAM will return the destination port (the associated content). ARP table is the table that holds binding between a certain IP address and corresponding MAC address. A MAC address table is used by a layer-2 switch to relate the layer-2 address to the switch interface. g. Indeed the FIB contain the best route selected from the RIB. 2. The attack works by forcing legitimate MAC table contents out of the switch and forcing a unicast flooding behavior potentially sending sensitive information to portions of the network where. Routing Table D. If you have two networks, each with 100 devices on them, then the router has to learn, or remember, up to 200 MAC addresses. A MAC flooding attack, also known as a MAC table overflow attack, is a type of network security attack that targets network switches. However if I check the CAM table when the server is. 4567. Known details: PC A -> SW 1 -> Router -> SW 2 -> PC B. Set timeouts for entries in the dynamic MAC Table and configure the static MAC table here. The MAC address table in a switch is irrelevant for a broadcast frame. The interface where we learned the MAC address. The switching table contains MAC addresses and the switch ports on which they were learned or statically configured. In this video, our expert instructor has explained concisely that: 1. - CAM table (or MAC table) was stored in DRAM of routers (or switches) This is not a precise statement. ·. B. B) Switch has the CAM table which holds the Mac. Sorted by: 2. This is surprising to me, and it really threw me off when I was playing with port-security (the maximum number of MAC addresses was reached, which triggered a violation, and I could not figure. The CAM can store MAC table and many other kinds of data - it is not limited to pure MAC addresses. CAM and TCAM memory. A. A CAM overflow attack occurs when an attacker connects to a single or multiple switch ports and then runs a tool that mimics the existence of thousands of random MAC addresses on those switch ports. # = System Entry. 0101 which corresponds with multicast group 239. If you use this command just after turning on the switch, it displays a blank CAM table. The fact that the table comes up empty is very probably correct. A CAM table overflow works just as the name applies, by overflowing the limited amount of space in a switch’s CAM table (AKA MAC address table). Switching doesn't know anything about layer-3, and that allows a switch to carry any layer-3 protocol. (300 seconds is a common value but it can be another value, and it may be configurable, depending on the switch vendor / model / software version). در سوییچ جدولی تحت عنوان MAC/CAM table وجود دارد که اطلاعات Mac address پورت های متصل به سوییچ در آن وجود دارد و ارسال packet ها درون شبکه را با استفاده از این table انجام میدهدMLS. When performing a MAC address table lookup, the MAC address itself is the content being queried. Hi, ARP gets the MAC address of a host or node and creates a local db that maps the MAC address to the hosts IP address. 9abc. z. CAM Table Overflows occur when an influx of MAC addresses are flooded into the table and the CAM table threshold is reached. Note – An entry in the switch MAC table, also known as CAM (Content Addressable Memory), can remain up to 300 seconds. Be sure to subscribe and check out the rest of the series for the rest of the labs!Here is a link to the first v. This is a part from that book. Since a CAM table is maintained for every VLAN, and VLANs are totally segmented between each other, it would not be a problem to have the same MAC address on two. A MAC address, also known as “hardware address” or “physical address”, is a binary number used to uniquely identify computer network adapters. So there is no need for a MAC Table I guess. ARP table = layer 3. An Ethernet switch in a switched network contains a CAM table that holds all of the MAC addresses of devices in the network. CAM table records the incoming packet's MAC address, Port & VLAN. If there are enough entries stored in a CAM table before the expiration of other entries, no new entries can be accepted into the CAM. X. A MAC table is probably a CAM table; not all CAM tables are MAC tables. -amit singhIntroduction CAM (Content Addressable Memory) VS TCAM (Ternary Content Addressable Memory) CAM VS TCAM Multilayer switches forward frames and packets at wire speed by using ASIC hardware. A CAM table uses entries to store information. CAM is used to build routing tables. PC A wants to communicate with PC B, such as sending a message. The memory operation is performed with a single operation instead of per entry. To view the contents of the ARP table in pfSense software, navigate to Diagnostics > ARP Table. Cut-through frame forwarding ensures that invalid frames are always. Any packets with a source MAC address that is not on the approved list will not be saved to the forwarding table. z router, send packets to MAC Address aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff. Very seldom is it specified as the CAM table unless the distinction between CAM and TCAM needs to be made, or someone is teaching the subject. Overall, the general answer is correct. Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table is a system memory construct used by Ethernet switch logic which stores information such as MAC addresses available on physical ports with their associated VLAN Parameters. sniff the traffic floods the. The switching table entries are normally dynamically. If you specify an address but do not specify an interf ace, the address is deleted from all. A switch. Op · 7 yr. TCAM memory does not require the ASIC to execute loops through an algorithm to search the table. The command to look it up in almost all switches/devices is show mac-address table (or some form of this). I was having a discussion with someone about the. There’s not much to see here yet, though, since we haven’t hooked anything up to the. The two pc arp table clean. Otherwise, it will be sent out the interface to which the client is connected. MAC tables map MAC addresses to physical interfaces. When the switch receives a frame from Pc1, it associates the media access control (MAC) address of the sending network device (pc1) with the LAN port on which it was received. 0/24. however, I think you're over thinking the problem. Configuring the Aging Time for the MAC TableContent-addressable memory (CAM) is the heart of the function of a switch, as it pertains to MAC address-to-network-port assignments for lookup by the switch. So when you disconnect a device, the entry will be removed after some times. Static Entries: Static entries have high priority than dynamic entries and remain active they can be changed or removed by the switch administrator as they are manually added by the switch. Packets or frames are forwarded by looking up the destination MAC address in the switching table. you are asking about ARP tables, and you're using OID . A switch’s CAM table contains network information such as MAC addresses available on physical switch ports and associated VLAN parameters. ARP Table (Layer 3) The ARP table is used to map MAC Addresses. Managed switches store the MAC addresses of devices in a special location called the CAM table. ) to relate a layer-3 (IPv4) address to a layer-2 (MAC) address. Router prefix lookups happen in CAM. MAC Address Table is full and it is unable to save new MAC addresses. the only packets that are flooded are "empty" SYN packets (or more likely. There is a unique MAC address assigned to Ethernet interfaces of network devices as well. The MAC address table consists of two types of entries. The CAM table (Content Addressable Memory) records the source MAC address, port & VLAN, and timestamp of each received frame. If a MAC address learned on one switch port has. Chapter 3: Switch and IOS Fundamentals. When a frame reaches into the port of a switch, the switch reads the MAC address of the source device from frame and compare it to its MAC address table (also known as CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table). A switch can learn MAC address in two ways; statically or dynamically. See answer (1) Best Answer. . R2#show arp. MAC addresses are used by network switches to keep track of what devices are connected to each switch interface and they store these mappings in a table called a CAM table or MAC address table. and switch will be using this information to transfer information. After the table is full, all traffic with an address not in the table is flooded out all interfaces. The switch enters these into the CAM table, and eventually the CAM table fills to capacity. Suppose the router has learnt the mac of a connected PC via the arp process and at 900 secs when the arp timer. ARP table is used to populate IP-MAC info in both CAM and Adjacency Tables. The ports are restricted and learn up to a maximum of 10 dynamically-learned addresses D. The switch itself does not store this information in the CAM-table. When you enable CAM table usage monitoring, the number of valid entries in the CAM table are counted and if the percentage of the CAM utilization is higher or equal to the specified threshold, a message is displayed. z. When we look at the MAC address table, we can see a lot of malicious inputs that came from the port fa0/1. And yes each interface needs a different MAC coz if more than one interface will have the same MAC the CAM table will be confusing. These are all different software techniques, with different performance in terms of the maximum number of packets that can be routed per second. 7. When a frame reaches into the port of a switch, the switch reads the MAC address of the source device from frame and compare it to its MAC address table (also known as CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table). Start out at the network's center, or core, and display the CAM table entry for the MAC address. Host A receives the frame. Something most people don’t realize is that there is a limited amount of MAC addresses that a network switch can store in its MAC address table, and this can be exploited. This type of attack is also known as CAM table overflow attack. However, let's assume among the many switches there is a switch, let's call it S1, that is only connected to clients with IPs in range 123. New addresses will then be learned. show (mac-address-table secure) Displays the addressing security configuration. R1 checks its routing table. A CAM table is the same thing as a MAC address table. Limiting the number of registered MAC addresses on a switch access port can help prevent a CAM table overflow attack. Introduction CAM (Content Addressable Memory) VS TCAM (Ternary Content Addressable Memory) CAM VS TCAM Multilayer switches forward frames and packets at wire speed by using ASIC hardware. In the case of Layer 2 switching tables, the switch must find an exact match to a destination MAC address or the switch floods the packet out all ports in the VLAN. The maximum default time an entry will be kept on the table is 300. Reply. The router has a single table (CAM - content addressable memory) where it stores things like MAC address associations. Introduction CAM (Content Addressable Memory) VS TCAM (Ternary Content Addressable Memory) CAM VS TCAM Multilayer switches forward frames and packets at wire speed by using ASIC hardware. On most network devices, the command is either. If the MAC address is detected on a different port, the switch creates a new record with the new port, vlan and a new timestamp; then the previous entry is deleted. An ARP table is composed of devices’ IP and MAC addresses. The MAC Address Table allows the. MAC address tables relate a MAC address to a switch interface, and that is completely different than what ARP does, which is to relate a layer-3 address to a layer-2 address. 01c then it looks that MAC address up in the CAM table. A switch can learn MAC addresses in two ways; statically or dynamically. A switch has one cam table for all vlans. As soon as the user tries to ping host. X. Using a too large (even if its default) arp timeout means that the dist-router. In this case, the CAM table results are used only to decide that the frame should be processed at Layer 3. تفاوت جدول MAC و جدول CAM در سویچ چیست؟. 1w flushes out the MAC table almost instantly except MAC addresses on the port the BPDU was received on) Send BPDUs with the TC bit set (802. When performing a MAC address table lookup, the MAC address itself is the content being queried. 1. Mac address table overflow is a security vulnerability which attackers exploit by overflooding the CAM table to sniff the traffic. The ARP table is your layer 3 to layer 2 resolution. The following configuration: switchport port-security. 1. Once the decision is made to route if through some network interface, the packet is delivered by. The interface where the firewall observed the host. For my router and switch (router with switch module on it) both works commands "show arp" and "show mac-address-table". 1/ sh platform tcam utilization : The unicast mac addresses row shows me more than 3K unicast mac addresses used on the 6K available with the default sdm. A CAM is often referred to as a binary CAM due to its ability to match only on 0's and 1's. The CAM table used by a switch deals with the MAC address to interface resolution. That is the Po1 in the result you got. the lan switch learns from user traffic out what port a mac address is looking at source MAC address of. Ref: Flooding vs Broadcast - Cisco Community Post by Kristian Alexander Brown “… Flooding is sometimes known as an unknown unicast. What is a CAM Table Overflow Attack? Quick Definition: A CAM table overflow. Details set cam. the arp timeout is longer than the mac-address-timeout. If no entry exists, it will add the MAC of Host A plus the port to which Host A is connected to its CAM table. تفاوت Cam Table و Mac Table. CAM is most useful for building tables that search on exact matches such as MAC address tables. 89ab comes into Switch 1 port 5. For any matching results, CAM will return the destination port (the associated content). The CAM table is empty until ingress traffic arrives at each port B. This fills in the switch’s CAM table, thus new MAC addresses can not be saved, and the switch starts to send all packets to all ports, so it starts to act as a hub, and thus we can monitor all traffic passing through it. 2. This flood of data causes the switch to dump the valid addresses it has in its CAM database tables in an attempt to make room for the bogus information. Content-addressable memory (CAM) is a special type of computer memory used in certain very-high-speed searching applications. There is a source endpoint and a destination endpoint with two separate. 0 Helpful Reply. the CAM table is the table where the associations MAC address, Vlan, port are stored. I don't believe there is a difference as such. MAC flooding involves flooding of CAM table with fake MAC address and IP pairs until it is full. But I do have the object in. what it contains, 2. Switch then acts as a hub by broadcasting packets to all machines on the network and attackers can sniff the traffic easily. It's easy to get them mixed up, as they have similar names. Mark as New;- [Instructor] The CAM or MAC address table on a switch maps the MAC address of a device to tne physical switch port. Figure 3-6 displays the typical CAM table population by a Cisco switch. LAN‘s switches maintain a . Unless, of course, there was no activity from PC2 for five minutes and the MAC address was flushed from the CAM table but PC1 still has a valid entry in its ARP cache because four hours has not passed yet (default MAC and ARP. S1# show mac address-table. A. if conditions a) and b) happen there is an uniknown unicast flooding, but as soon as the intended destination MAC address answers back the CAM entry is created again and unknown unicast flloding stops for that MAC address . MAC address filtering involves configuring a MAC address switch to only accept packets from known MAC addresses. 1. In this process, the switch does not look at IP headers - only the DMAC is used for the forwarding. Have management module, Processor, Table to maintain MAC addresses for managing traffic between nodes. En los Switchs, la memoria CAM (Content Addressable Memory) se utiliza para construir y buscar la tabla de. MAC addresses (layer 2) and routing tables (layer 3) are not related at all. Links: NX-OS: Default mac-address timeout: 30 min (1800 secs) Default arp timeout: 25 min (1500 secs) with the following note: The ARP timeout should be less than the MAC address table aging timer, so the ARP updates prevent entries from timing out of the MAC address table. You also can configure static CAM table entries that contain MAC addresses that might not be learned otherwise. When the table is full then it is full for every vlan. It is used to record a stations mac address and it's corresponding switch port location. 36d0 vlan 1 interface fastEthernet 0/1. Suppose Computer A is connected to an Ethernet cable that plugs into the switch's Port 1, Computer B is connected to Port 2, and Computer C to Port 3. Ran show mac address-table on different switches and core itself (on the core, for example, plugged by desktop directly, my desktop ), and we can see the several different MAC hardware address being registered to the interface, even. From my understanding CAM is the Content−Addressable Memory which is available per port on the switch to speed up ethernet ID lookup. The very process of finding the root of the spanning tree is enough. Flapping MAC address is more often an indication of a layer 2 loop, rather than an attack. 12-18-2008 06:15 AM. to enable Switching at Layer 2. In new IOS. TCAM requires an exact. In switches CAM – Content Addressable Memory is used for building and lookup of mac address table that enables L2 forwarding decisions. ff89 vlan 3 interface ethernet 2/1 To delete a static MAC address, perform this task: You can use the mac-address-table static command to assign a static MA C address to a virtual interface. The CAM table function at this point is merely to direct traffic accordingly and be used as a. By default, dynamic entries are removed from the MAC table after 300 seconds. Flush CAM tables (this is different depending on the protocol, 802. So far everything is OK. Bravo. So there is no need for a MAC Table I guess. For any matching results, CAM will return the destination port (the associated content). The CAM and mac address-table semantics are often used interchangeably. Since a CAM table is maintained for every VLAN, and VLANs are totally segmented between each other, it would not be a problem to have the same MAC address on two. The MAC address table supports partial matches. Hi everyone. Published in. They do not contradict. What is a Routing Table? 3. If you have two networks, each with 100 devices on them, then the router has to learn, or remember, up to 200 MAC addresses. In the static option, we manually add MAC addresses to the CAM table. Table lookup is fast and always based on an exact key match consisting of two input values: 0 and 1 bits. . The MAC Address is a unique identifier that identifies every network interface on a network. The ARP request is broadcast to all ports. 03-02-2010 02:01 PM. Im asking for the behavior of a layer 3 switch when receiving a packet with A destination ip address that have a resolution in the arp-cache but no entry is found for the mac-add in the cam-table. CAM table stores mac address, port and associated vlan parameters. The "show arp" command shows the IP, corresponding MAC and the corresponding Router Interface also. MAC address: A MAC (Media Access Control. Figure 2 - Checking CAM Table of Switch S1. Ports: 4 to 12 Ports. Ajayamanna. Most probably due to a minor bug, it seems that the MAC table is considered full at 8189 entries instead of 8192. Synchronizing MAC address tables across switches doesn't make any sense. Look at the switch port shown in the entry and move to the neighboring switch connected to that port. That lens is limited to 3x for 15. The CAM table assigns physical ports to MAC addresses. The switch stores the CAM table in the RAM. . What is Switch MAC Table (CAM Table)? 2. Hi All. z. - the arp table resolves what physical port/vlan on your local device traffic is exiting to reach the attached mac address and IP address of the desired device. MAC Table C. By implementing router prefix lookup in TCAM, we are moving process of. ago MartianPacket. EDIT: To actually answer the question: show mac-address-table or show mac address-table (depending on platform and software generation) is the single command to see the MAC address table on a Cisco Switch like the 2960. As a workaround, you can issue one of these commands in order to increase the CAM aging timer for the VLAN you are having trouble with to match the ARP aging time: For CatOS, issue the set cam agingtime command. This is called MAC flooding. Thank you Daniel. 12. It performs the entire search operation in a single clock cycle. Switches use a hash to place MACs into the CAM table. Use the command to configure how long entries remain in the Ethernet switching table before expiring. The address is located on port 3/2, and the switch makes a static entry in the CAM table for 01-00-5e-0a-0a-0a bounded to port 3/2. Well, the sticky option will put the learned MAC into CAM table as 'static', then the port security config will keep track of other mac addresses on configured port and take configured action with 'violation error' if wrong MAC address is detected. See this: SW6#sh mac address-table . It's the port-security feature that stores dynamically learned entries in the CAM-table. CAM ( Content Adressable Memory) is a special kind of memory where you can implement your mac-address table. A static ARP table contains entries that are user-configured. An ARP Request is used to find locate the MAC address and then map it to the port where the ARP reply is received. I need to find out what port a MAC address is connected to. Specific Layer 2 and Layer 3 components, such as routing tables or Access Control Lists (ACLs), are cached int. The source MAC address is not in in the switch's Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table. Contributor In response to Elliot Dierksen. به زبان خیلی ساده. CAM table stands for Content Addressable Memory The CAM tables stores information such as MAC addresses available on physical ports with their associated VLAN parameters. That includes the frames used to negotiate the Spanning Tree Protocol. g. CAM simply refers to the way the switch uses memory (in a content-addresable) manner to look up the MAC address to.