One of the most important aspects of communications on an Internetwork is the logical addressing scheme.

IP addressing is the method used to identify hosts and network devices. The number of hosts connected to the Internet continues to grow, and the IP addressing scheme has had to be adapted to cope with this growth. In order to send and receive messages on an IP network, every network host must be assigned a unique 32 bit IP address. Because large binary numbers are difficult for humans to read and understand, IP addresses are usually displayed in dotted-decimal notation. In dotted-decimal notation, each of the

four octets is converted to a decimal number separated by a decimal point.

For example, the IP address: 11000000.10101000.00000001.01101010 is represented as 192.168.1.106 in dotted decimal notation.

The IP protocol is one of a group of protocols that are collectively referred to as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). The Internet Protocol (IP) uses packets to carry data.

Each IP packet must contain a valid source and destination IP address. Without valid address information, packets sent will not reach the destination host. Return packets will not make it back to the original source.

IP defines the structure of the source and destination IP addresses. It specifies how these addresses are used in routing of packets from one host or network to another.

An IP packet has a header at the beginning which contains the source and destination IP addresses. It also contains control information that describes the packet to network devices, such as routers, it passes through and also helps to control its behaviour on the network. The IP packet is sometimes referred to as a datagram.

IP addresses must be unique on the Internet. There are organizations responsible for controlling the distribution of IP addresses so that there is no duplication. ISPs obtain blocks of IP addresses from a local, national or

regional Internet registry (RIR). It is the responsibly of the ISPs to manage

these addresses and assign them to end users.

An IP address is simply a series of 32 binary bits (ones and zeros). It is very difficult for

humans to read a binary IP address. For this reason, the 32 bits are grouped into four
8-bit bytes called octets. An IP address in this format is hard for humans to read, write and remember. To make the IP address easier to understand, each octet is presented as its decimal value, separated by a decimal point or period. This is referred to as

dotted-decimal notation.

When a host is configured with an IP address, it is entered as a dotted decimal number such as 192.168.1.5. Imagine if you had to enter the 32-bit binary equivalent of this11000000101010000000000100000101. If just one bit was mistyped, the address would be different and the host may not be able to communicate on the network.

The 32-bit IP address is defined with IP version 4 (IPv4) and is currently the most common form of IP address on the Internet. There are over 4 billion possible IP addresses using a 32-bit addressing scheme.