diffence in mac and ip?

"i know ip is the acesss point to the internet"
well not rely a IP address is just a number that is used to refer to a certain computer on a network

so here is a very basic image of what most local networks look like in terms of ip addresses (the numbers you see are IP addresses):
http://92.19.232.58:82/files/basic_local_network.png

your router also has a external ip address which is used to refer to your router across the internet
so that other people can download data from a computer
on your local network(if you have allowed them too)

so for example you can host a webserver on a computer on your local network
and then someone could access it by typing your externel IP address into a browser
my external ip address is 92.19.232.58

but a lot of people buy domain names so that people can type
website.com instead of 92.19.232.58 into there browser

i have only mentioned the very basics of ip addresses but it should give you a good idea of what they are

mac addresses are different from IP addresses as they are meant to identify that individual computer in the world
so i think the idea is no computer produced will have the same mac address although with libreboot you can change your mac address if you rely wanted too

*if i have given any false info please correct me

i currently thinking of deploying a sever on digitalocean.

>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 is 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.

I'm sure internet is full of info on the matter..

IP is for the DoD model (AKA TCP/IP or Internet model) while MAC is for the OSI model. OSI has 7 layers while DoD has 4.

Now I'm gonna say that what marioxcc is "partially wrong" in the sense of the use of the word Internet plus another thing I'm going 2 mention:

Internet AKA The Net differs from internet. An internet is any network which is interconected thru routers AND USES THE TCP/IP protocols to comunicate. On the other hand Internet is larger internet in the world (nd dee universe).

So, you can have (example here) 2 LANs connected with a router that connects them and are using TCP/IP. That's an internet. That internet may have a conection to Internet or not but it doesn't means that the communication must use Internet to be internet.,.,.,.,

Now you can read marioxcc answer and u'll get it, then read texts on the subject.
Remember that an IP address is a logical address while a MAC address is a physical one (anyway you can clone it, useful 4 binding n bonding)

You don't need to have knowledge to deploy a server because u can do it with a simple howto tutorial and you'll get it working without know anything. To deploy a server won't get you more knowledge on Networking. Not with a tutorial way.,.,