Understanding MAC table with simulation on packet tracer

macmac address

i created the following topology using packet tracer to understand how the switch mac table works ,
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at the beginning , i looked at the mac table in the swithc S1 before i send any packet or do any pings and i found that the router R1 mac address(the one on fa0) is always there , so why is that ?! is it always like this when router connects to switch ?! is this normal ?

later a sent a packet from PC1 to the web server (IP: 10.1.1.99) and i noticed that when the packet came out of PC1 the mac address of the destination was (00:E0:8F:79:BD:01) which the mac address of router R1 on port 0 and when the packet leaved R1 the packet destination address became (00:DD:32:33:15:62) which is the mac of web server , so is this what really happens in real life? why the packet didn't have the mac of web server when it came out from pc1 not from Router R1 ? Can anybody explain this to me ?!
Note : i used RIP to route the two LAN networks together ,

Kind regards

Best Answer

To answer your questions:

PC1 looks at its local routing table and decides it needs R1 to reach the web server. It uses the server's IP address as destination but as destination MAC address for Ethernet transport it uses the router's MAC.

The router looks at the destination IP address and decides to forward the packet out of the interface facing the web server. Since it's an Ethernet interface and the destination IP is local to the segment it'll ARP the IP address of the server and use the MAC as destination.