IP address

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification (logical address) that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.[1] Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers, they are often displayed in more human-readable notations, such as 192.168.100.1 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:1:1 (for IPv6). The role of the IP address has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there." [2]


Originally, an IP address was defined as a 32-bit number[1] and this system, now named Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is still in use today. However, due to the enormous growth of the Internet and the resulting depletion of the address space, a new addressing system (IPv6), using 128 bits for the address, had to be developed.[3] IPv6 is now being deployed across the world; in many places it coexists with the old standard and is transmitted over the same hardware and network links.


The Internet Protocol also is responsible for routing data packets between networks, and IP addresses specify the locations of the source and destination nodes in the topology of the routing system. For this purpose, some of the bits in an IP address are used to designate a subnetwork. (In CIDR notation, the number of bits used for the subnet follows the IP address. E.g. 192.168.100.1/16) An IP address can be private, for use on a LAN, or public, for use on the Internet or other WAN.



In early specifications, IP addresses were intended to be uniquely assigned to a particular computer or device.[citation needed] However, it was found that this was not always necessary as private networks developed and address space needed to be conserved (IPv4 address exhaustion). RFC 1918 specifies private address spaces that may be reused by anyone; today, such private networks typically access the Internet through Network Address Translation (NAT). In addition, technologies such as anycast addressing have been developed to allow multiple hosts at the same IP address but in different portions of the Internet to service requests by network clients.


The global IP address space is managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). IANA works in cooperation with five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) to allocate IP address blocks to Local Internet Registries (Internet service providers) and other entities.


Contents
1 IP versions
1.1 IP version 4 addresses
1.1.1 IPv4 address networks
1.1.2 IPv4 private addresses
1.2 IP version 6 addresses
1.2.1 IPv6 private addresses
2 IP address subnetworks
3 Static and dynamic IP addresses
3.1 Method of assignment
3.2 Uses of dynamic addressing
3.3 Uses of static addressing
4 Modifications to IP addressing
4.1 IP blocking and firewalls
4.2 IP address translation
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
7.1 RFCs
//

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IP - Internet Protocol
By Bradley Mitchell, About.com
Filed In:
Network Design / IT
> Network Protocols
> IP and IPv6


Definition: IP is the primary network protocol used on the Internet, developed in the 1970s. On the Internet and many other networks, IP is often used together with the Transport Control Protocol (TCP) and referred to interchangeably as TCP/IP.


IP supports unique addressing for computers on a network. Most networks use the IP version 4 (IPv4) standard that features IP addresses four bytes (32 bits) in length. The newer IP version 6 (IPv6) standard features addresses 16 bytes (128 bits) in length.


Data on an IP network is organized into [ipackets. Each IP packet includes both a header (that specifies source, destination, and other information about the data) and the message data itself.
IP functions at layer 3 of the OSI model. It can therefore run on top of different data link interfaces including Ethernet and Wi-Fi.


Also Known As: Internet Protocol
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