IP Addressing

IP (Internet Protocol) addressing is a fundamental aspect of networking, at the core of interaction between systems in a network. Each device connected to a network must have a unique address, known as an IP address, to communicate with other devices. In version 4 of the IP protocol (IPv4), these addresses are usually represented as four numbers, each ranging from 0 to 255, separated by periods (e.g., 192.168.1.1). The newer standard, IPv6, introduced to deal with the shortage of available IPv4 addresses, employs a more complex notation using hexadecimal numbers and colons. However, the purpose remains the same: to uniquely identify each device on a network. IP addresses can be either static (permanently assigned to a device) or dynamic (assigned temporarily from a pool of addresses).