MAC Address Grounding Data

Overview

Pass a MAC address in any common notation. The endpoint checks validity, normalizes the address, and produces colon, dash, Cisco dot, and delimiter-free raw string representations. If an address is invalid, the formats object returns null. Set addressing=true to read the address type from its first octet: whether it is unicast, multicast or broadcast on any plan, and on paid plans whether it is universally assigned or locally administered, as the randomized private addresses used by phones and laptops are. Paid plans also return the hardware vendor and registered OUI prefix, with records refreshed weekly.

Live Test MAC Address Grounding Data Source →

The tool

Once your client is connected to the VerveContext server, this appears in its tool list as MACAddressGroundingData. It is read-only and open-world — it fetches and never mutates anything on your side — so most clients call it without asking you to confirm.

{
  "name": "MACAddressGroundingData",
  "arguments": {
    "mac": "00-B0-D0-63-C2-26"
  }
}

You do not name the tool yourself; the model picks it. Asking about 00-B0-D0-63-C2-26 in the terms this source covers is enough for it to reach for MACAddressGroundingData on its own — naming it explicitly also works, and is the way to force the call.

Connecting

One server URL covers every source in the catalog, including this one. Authorization is OAuth: the client opens a browser once, and there is no key to paste into a config file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vervecontext": {
      "url": "https://api.vervecontext.com/v1/mcp"
    }
  }
}

https://api.vervecontext.com/v1/mcp

Per-client setup — Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT — is on the MCP setup page.

Arguments

These are the properties on the tool's inputSchema, so a well-behaved client validates them before the call is made. Premium arguments are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.

What the model gets back

The result carries a structuredContent object matching the tool's declared outputSchema, so a client reads fields without parsing prose. status is "ok" and error is null on success; a null field means the value was not available for that input, not that the call failed.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "mac": "00:B0:D0:63:C2:26",
    "isValid": true,
    "vendor": "Dell Inc.",
    "oui": "00B0D0",
    "formats": {
      "colon": "00:B0:D0:63:C2:26",
      "dash": "00-B0-D0-63-C2-26",
      "dot": "00B0.D063.C226",
      "raw": "00B0D063C226"
    },
    "addressing": {
      "castType": "unicast",
      "isMulticast": false,
      "isBroadcast": false,
      "administration": "universal",
      "isLocallyAdministered": false
    }
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Why ground on it

A model can produce something that looks like this answer from its training data, and be confidently out of date or simply wrong. This source returns the current value in a shape you can check, which is the difference between an answer you can cite and one you have to hedge.

Point an evaluation at isValid: it is the field most worth pinning a claim to, and it is either present and current or absent — never plausibly invented.

Failure modes

Errors come back as tool errors carrying a sentence the model can act on, not a bare status code. Error handling covers the full list.

A call costs 2 credits each time the tool actually runs; a model that reasons about the tool without calling it costs nothing.

Use cases

Network Asset Inventory

When scanning local subnets, parse raw ARP table entries into uniform colon notation to catalog connected hardware.

Rogue Device Detection

Flag unrecognized hardware on corporate Wi-Fi by checking incoming MAC prefixes against approved vendor lists on paid tiers.

Switch Configuration Generation

Sysadmins convert colon-delimited MAC addresses into Cisco dotted format to paste directly into port security ACL rules.

Packet Capture Inspection

Security analysts normalize hex strings extracted from PCAP network traces into dashed or colon formats for log correlation.

Other ways to use MAC Address Grounding Data

Set up MAC Address Grounding Data on VerveContext, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveContext account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

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