TCP/IP Addressing
TCP/IP uses 32 bits or 4 groups of numbers between 0 and 255 to address computers.
IP Address
Each computer must have an IP address to connect to the internet.
Each IP packet must have an address to be sent to another computer.
In the next section of this tutorial, you will learn more about IP addresses and IP names.
IP Address Consists of 4 Groups of Numbers:
TCP/IP uses 4 groups of numbers to address computers. Each computer must have a unique address consisting of 4 groups of numbers.
Each group of numbers must be between 0 and 255 and is separated by dots, such as: 192.168.1.60.
32 Bits = 4 Bytes
TCP/IP uses 32 bits for addressing. One computer byte is 8 bits. Therefore, TCP/IP uses 4 bytes.
A computer byte can contain 256 different values:
00000000, 00000001, 00000010, 00000011, 00000100, 00000101, 00000110, 00000111, 00001000 ....... up to 11111111.
Now, you should understand why TCP/IP addresses are 4 groups of numbers between 0 and 255.
IP V6
IPv6 stands for "Internet Protocol Version 6" and is also known as the next-generation internet protocol. It was designed by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) to replace the current IPv4 protocol.
We know that each host on the Internet has a unique IP address, which is represented by a 32-bit binary number. However, the 32-bit address space is limited and has become insufficient for user needs. Therefore, a new method for host identification, IPv6, has been introduced.
In RFC1884 (RFC stands for Request for Comments document. RFCs are standards for Internet services), the standard syntax recommends representing the 128 bits (16 bytes) of an IPv6 address as 8 16-bit unsigned integers, each represented by 4 hexadecimal digits, separated by colons (:), for example:
686E:8C64:FFFF:FFFF:0:1180:96A:FFFF
The colon hexadecimal notation allows zero compression, where a series of consecutive zeros can be replaced by a double colon, for example:
FF05:0:0:0:0:0:0:B3 can be shortened to: FF05::B3
To ensure clear interpretation, zero compression can only be used once in any address. This technique is particularly useful for the proposed allocation strategies, as many addresses will contain long strings of zeros.
The colon hexadecimal notation can be combined with dotted decimal notation, which is particularly useful during the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. For example, the following string is a valid colon hexadecimal notation:
0:0:0:0:0:0:128.10.1.1
In this notation, although each value separated by colons is a 16-bit quantity, each dotted decimal part indicates a byte value. Using zero compression, it can be shortened to:
::128.10.1.1
Domain Names
12 Arabic numerals are hard to remember. Using a name is easier.
Names used for TCP/IP addresses are called domain names. tutorialpro.org is a domain name.
When you enter a domain name like http://www.tutorialpro.org, it is translated into a numeric address by a DNS program.
Numerous DNS servers are connected to the Internet worldwide. DNS servers are responsible for translating domain names into TCP/IP addresses and updating each other's systems with new domain name information.
When a new domain name and its TCP/IP address are registered, this information is updated across all DNS servers worldwide.