IP address
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An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that certain electronic devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)—in simpler terms, a computer address. Any participating network device—including routers, switches, computers, time-servers, printers, Internet fax machines, and some telephones—can have their own unique address.
In other words, the IP address acts as a locator for one IP device to find another and interact with it. It is not intended, however, to act as an identifier that always uniquely identifies a particular device.
An IP address can also be thought of as the equivalent of a street address or a phone number (compare: VoIP (voice over (the) internet protocol)) for a computer or other network device on the Internet. Just as each street address and phone number uniquely identifies a building or telephone, an IP address can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on a network. An IP address differs from other contact information, however, because the linkage of a user's IP address to his/her name is not publicly available information.
Further, an IP address is not necessarily linked, in a persistent way, to a physical location or even data link layer address.
In the past, an IP address could be considered a unique identifier of a particular IP host, in addition to being a locator. When it was usable as an identifier, it was static, and it was assumed to be globally unique from end to end of the Internet.
In current practice, an IP address is less likely to be an identifier, due to technologies such as:
- Dynamic assignment, as with an address that is assigned by the access device by which the user's host connects over a dialup telephone line or by a set-top box for an IP over cable network. However the network provider maintains a database of which IP address was assigned to which access port on dialup, or MAC address on LANs or broadband networks. This information, assuming it is available to the investigator, may help to identify the computer, although that is unlikely if it was a dialup connection where the identifier is of the dial-in port, not the computer itself. More extensive forensic work, with access to telephone records, may identify the calling telephone, although that may itself be a "cutout" on the way to the real telephone.
- Network address translation (or NAT), a feature common on gateway routers in corporate networks or home LANs, where the address visible to the Internet is the "outside" of a device that maps it to a completely different and hidden address on the "inside". See IP Address Translation, below.
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[edit] IP versions
The Internet Protocol has two versions currently in use (see IP version history for details). Each version has its own definition of an IP address. Because of its prevalence, "IP address" typically refers to those defined by IPv4.
[edit] IP version 4
IPv4 only uses 32-bit (4 byte) addresses, which limits the address space to 4,294,967,296 (232) possible unique addresses. However, many are reserved for special purposes, such as private networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~270 million addresses). This reduces the number of addresses that can be allocated as public Internet addresses, and as the number of addresses available is consumed, an IPv4 address shortage appears to be inevitable in the long run. This limitation has helped stimulate the push towards IPv6, which is currently in the early stages of deployment and is currently the only contender to replace IPv4.
Example: 127.0.0.1 (Loopback)
[edit] IP version 6
IPv6 is the new standard protocol for the Internet. Windows Vista, Apple Computer's Mac OS X, and an increasing range of Linux distributions include native support for the protocol, but it is not yet widely deployed elsewhere.
Addresses are 128 bits (16 bytes) wide, which, even with a generous assignment of netblocks, will more than suffice for the foreseeable future. In theory, there would be exactly 2128, or about 3.403 × 1038 unique host interface addresses. Further, this large address space will be sparsely populated, which makes it possible to again encode more routing information into the addresses themselves.
Example: 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334
One source[1] notes that there will exist "roughly 5,000 addresses for every square micrometer of the Earth's surface". This enormous magnitude of available IP addresses will be sufficiently large for the indefinite future, even though mobile phones, cars and all types of personal devices are coming to rely on the Internet for everyday purposes.
The above source, however, involves a common misperception about the IPv6 architecture. Its large address space is not intended to provide unique addresses for every possible point. Rather, the addressing architecture is such that it allows large blocks to be assigned for specific purposes and, where appropriate, aggregated for provider routing. With a large address space, there is not the need to have complex address conservation methods as used in classless inter-domain routing (CIDR).
[edit] IP version 6 private addresses
Just as there are addresses for private, or internal networks in IPv4 (one example being the 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 range), there are blocks of addresses set aside in IPv6 for private addresses. Addresses starting with FE80: are called link-local addresses and are routable only on your local link area. This means that if several hosts connect to each other through a hub or switch then they would communicate through their link-local IPv6 address.
Early designs specified an address range used for "private" addressing, with prefix FEC0. These are called site-local addresses (SLA) and are routable within a particular site, analogously to IPv4 private addresses. Site-local addresses, however, have been deprecated by the IETF, since they create the same problem that does the existing IPv4 private address space (RFC 1918). With that private address space, when two sites need to communicate, they may have duplicate addresses that "combine". In the IPv6 architecture, the preferred method is to have unique addresses, in a range not routable on the Internet, issued to organizations (e.g., enterprises).
The preferred alternative to site-local addresses are centrally assigned unique local unicast addresses (ULA). In current proposals, they will start with the prefix FC00.
Neither ULA nor SLA nor link-local address ranges are routable over the internet.
[edit] IP address subnetting
Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses utilize subnetting, or dividing the IP address into two parts: the network address and the host address. By using a subnet mask, the computer can determine where to split the IP address.
[edit] Static and dynamic IP addresses
When a computers uses the same IP address every time it connects to the network, it is known as a Static IP address. In contrast, in situations when the computer's IP address changes frequently (such as when a user logs on to a network through dialup or through shared residential cable) it is called a Dynamic IP address.
[edit] Method of assigning
Static IP addresses are manually assigned to a computer by an administrator, either through the operating system configuration or through a command (e.g. ipconfig or ifconfig). This contrasts with dynamic IP addresses, where an IP address is automatically assigned to a computer by a remote server which is acting as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server. Even through IP addresses assigned using DHCP may stay the same for long periods of time, they are liable to change depending on the addresses available in the set scope.
[edit] Uses of dynamic addressing
Dynamic IP Addresses assigned, on LANs or most broadband networks, by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers are used because it reduces the administrative burden of assigning static addresses within a network. In most desktop operating systems, dynamic IP configuration is enabled by default. Dialup and some broadband networks do not use DHCP, but the dynamic IP addressing capability of the Point-to-Point Protocol
[edit] Uses of static addressing
Static addressing is essential in some infrastructure situations, such as finding the Domain Name Service directory host that will translate domain names to numbers (IP addresses). Static addresses are also convenient, but not absolutely necessary, to locate servers inside an enterprise. An address obtained from a DNS server comes with a time to live, or caching time, after which it should be looked up to confirm that it has not changed. Even static IP addresses do change as a result of network administration, however (RFC 2072).
[edit] Modifications to IP addressing
[edit] IP blocking and firewalls
Firewalls are common on today's Internet. For increased network security, they allow or deny access to their private network based on the public IP of the client. Whether using a blacklist or a whitelist, the IP address that is blocked is the perceived public IP address of the client, meaning that if the client is using a proxy server or NAT, blocking one IP address might block many individual people.
[edit] IP address translation
IP addresses can appear to be shared by multiple client devices either because they are part of a shared hosting web server environment or because an IPv4 network address translator (NAT) or proxy server acts as an intermediary agent on behalf of its customers, in which case the real originating IP addresses might be hidden from the server receiving a request. A common practice is to have a NAT hide a large number of IP addresses in a private network. Only the "outside" interface(s) of the NAT need to have Internet-routable addresses.
Most commonly, the NAT device maps TCP or UDP port numbers on the outside to individual private addresses on the inside. Just as there may be site-specific extensions on a telephone number, the port numbers are site-specific extensions to an IP address.
In small home networks, NAT functions are usually performed by an residential gateway device, typically one marketed as a "router". In this scenario, the computers connected to the router would have 'private' IP addresses and the router would have a 'public' address to communicate with the Internet. This type of router allows several computers to share one public IP address.
IP addresses are managed and created by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA generally allocates super-blocks to Regional Internet Registries, who in turn allocate smaller blocks to Internet service providers and enterprises.
[edit] See also
- Ping
- IP Multicast
- MAC address
- Regional Internet Registry
- Subnet address
- Geolocation
- Geolocation software
- Country IP database
- Geo (marketing)
- Honeypot
- Data mining
- IP address spoofing
- Help:Page history: your IP in the Wikipedia page histories.
- Private network
- IP blocking
[edit] External links
- IP at the Open Directory Project
- Articles on CircleID about IP addressing
- IP-Address Management on LANs — article in Byte magazine
- Understanding IP Addressing: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know
- An exception, how to put same IP address on two computers
