

* Broadcast and multicast packets need more special handling, but that is outside the scope of this question.
CHANGE ROUTER MAC ADDRESS TO GET NEW IP SERIAL
On the other hand if the link is a serial point to point interface then there may be no MAC addresses involved at all and other protocols may have their own addressing scheme. If the connection is Ethernet then the IP packet will be encapsulated in an Ethernet frame with the router's interface as source MAC and a MAC address looked up using the next-hop IP address as destination MAC address. What happens next depends on the nature of the connection between R1 and R2.The IP address is looked up in the routing table and an interface and next-hop IP address is chosen.The IP address is examined and determined to not be one of the local interfaces of the router.

This check is important to prevent packet duplication. For a Unicast MAC address* if it doesn't match the frame is dropped by the network card, if it does match the Ethernet frame is stripped and the packet is passed up to the IP stack.
