The Internet Protocol Address popularly called IP address, is a electronic address given to every wireless device that communicates with other wireless devices either between a network or over a network, examples are printers, cellphones, computers, etc.
There are 2 fundamental functions of IP addresses :
- For Hosting or Network Interface Identification: IP addresses help to host on the internet, see it like opening a shop in a big market, you'll have a specific address you can give to customers coming to your shop and even put on an advert.
- Local addressing (for communication) : Our devices have their own specific address so that traffic been sent to us will have an address its going to and not floating around. Let's see it like you ordering a pizza and not giving your home address or ordering something on the web and not filling your address.
We also have 2 forms of IP address :
- Local IP address : let's see the local IP address like your room number in a house, the local IP is the address within the network.
- Public IP address : let's see the Public IP like the home address, someone else can know your home address but your room address is known to people in the house( in the network).
When connected to a router, every device on the router has the same Public IP address but different local IP address. There are 3 forms of IP assignment:
- Dynamic IP address: This is assigned to devices by the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). Just like the make sounds it is dynamic, it changes every time you reconnect or release and renew your IP address. It comes with a lease date and an expiration date, to check windows users use ipconfig/all and Linux users use ifconfig - L.
- Static IP address : Just like the name sounds, it is static (doesn't change). The main way to get a static IP address is to request it from your network provider (this costs a lot of money) and then you set your device to use that specific address reserved for you by your network provider.
- Bootstrap Protocol : This is the predecessor to DHCP and it also assigns IP dynamically. It it mainly used now by the Tor network.
We have the IP version 4( IPv4) which is like four set of numbers seperated by a dot(.) e.g 192.0.23.24 and we have the IP version 6 (IPv6) which is an integration of the IP address and the Mac address and its a combination of letters and numbers in 8 set seperated by double column, it looks like this 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334.