Do you know how IP addresses work?

At school, we bear another identity apart from our names. Our names may be good identifiers, but there are several others with matching names. To ride out confusion, we’re allotted roll numbers, which are unique to us and can’t be duplicated. Numbers offer that advantage. It’s the same for working individuals who are denoted with an employee ID.

Computers within a network function similarly. Machines have to search and pinpoint your device that’s connected to a network. To not confuse the process, your computer must have a distinct identifier, something that’s widely called the IP (Internet Protocol) address.

The IP address is a number string, which is the host’s identity within a network. You’ve certainly seen this, a sequence that resembles - 192.168.151.101. The IP address has two units:

A Network ID

A Host ID

The IP is comprised of four sets of numbers. Each number is actually an eight digit binary number.

The Network ID acts as the identity of the network your computer is connected to. If the address is 192.168.151.101, then the network ID, to be read from the left, is 192.168.151.0. (adding 0 is standard).

The Host ID occupies the rest of the IP, the last bit. This is the part that’s unique to the device, generally termed 'Hosts’. So, in the IP 192.168.151.100, 100 would be the host ID.

The next question would be, how can a device tell the difference? To prevent mix up, there’s another number that is associated with the IP. This is called the 'subnet mask’. Typically, a subnet mask would bear 0 or 255 throughout its address. For reference - 255.255.255.0. Subnet masks do what they’re named after - masking the network ID.

If the device has to relay data to a different network ID, support of yet another address has to exist. This is known as the Default Gateway, sometimes called the router. It’s the default pathway for connections beyond your home network.

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Therefore, if you seek to visit Wikipedia, your computer sends a request through the router, and the router circulates it to the servers on the internet. The Wikipedia servers give back information to the router and it reaches your computer. That’s how you can view the website.

However, we use words to view a website and not an IP address. There’s yet another piece to the picture, and that’s Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS collects text and converts them into IP addresses. Hence, your query is a DNS query, sent through the router. DNS servers linked around the internet assimilate the information within themselves. Each router is configured to a specific DNS server to enable surfing.

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There’s more to IP addresses than meets the eye. There have been several advancements, but that’s for a later time.