An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label that is assigned

to devices participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for
communication between its nodes.[1] An IP address serves two principal functions:
host or network interface identification and location addressing. Its role has been
characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates
where it is. A route indicates how to get there."[2]

An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP
protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address
is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be
zero to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address.

Within an isolated network, you can assign IP addresses at random as long as each one is unique.
However, connecting a private network to the Internet requires using registered IP addresses
(called Internet addresses) to avoid duplicates.

The four numbers in an IP address are used in different ways to identify a particular network and
a host on that network. Four regional Internet registries -- ARIN, RIPE NCC, LACNIC and
APNIC -- assign Internet addresses from the following three classes.

 Class A - supports 16 million hosts on each of 126 networks

 Class B - supports 65,000 hosts on each of 16,000 networks
 Class C - supports 254 hosts on each of 2 million networks

An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network on the Internet and an
identifier of the particular device (which can be a server or a workstation) within that network.
On the Internet itself - that is, between the router that move packets from one point to another
along the route - only the network part of the address is looked at.

The Network Part of the IP Address

The Internet is really the interconnection of many individual networks (it's sometimes referred to
as an internetwork). So the Internet Protocol (IP) is basically the set of rules for one network
communicating with any other (or occasionally, for broadcast messages, all other networks).
Each network must know its own address on the Internet and that of any other networks with
which it communicates. To be part of the Internet, an organization needs an Internet network
number, which it can request from the Network Information Center (NIC). This unique network
number is included in any packet sent out of the network onto the Internet.

The Local or Host Part of the IP Address

In addition to the network address or number, information is needed about which specific
machine or host in a network is sending or receiving a message. So the IP address needs both the
unique network number and a host number (which is unique within the network). (The host
number is sometimes called a local or machine address.)

Part of the local address can identify a subnetwork or subnet address, which makes it easier for a
network that is divided into several physical subnetworks (for examples, several different local
area networks or ) to handle many devices.

IP Address Classes and Their Formats

Converting IP Address from Binary to Decimal

Address Classes:
Since networks vary in size, there are four different address formats or classes to consider when
applying to NIC for a network number:

• Class A addresses are for large networks with many devices.

• Class B addresses are for medium-sized networks.
• Class C addresses are for small networks (fewer than 256 devices).
• Class D addresses are multicast addresses.

The first few bits of each IP address indicate which of the address class formats it is using. The
address structures look like this:

Class A

0 Network (7 bits) Local address (24 bits)

Class B

10 Network (14 bits) Local address (16 bits)

Class C
 Local address (8
110 Network (21 bits)
bits)

Class D

1110 Multicast address (28 bits)

The IP address is usually expressed as four decimal numbers, each representing eight bits,
separated by periods. This is sometimes known as the dot address and, more technically, as
dotted quad notation. For Class A IP addresses, the numbers would represent
"network.local.local.local"; for a Class C IP address, they would represent
"network.network.network.local". The number version of the IP address can (and usually is)
represented by a name or series of names called the domain name.

The Internet's explosive growth makes it likely that, without some new architecture, the number
of possible network addresses using the scheme above would soon be used up (at least, for Class
C network addresses). However, a new IP version, IPv6, expands the size of the IP address to
128 bits, which will accommodate a large growth in the number of network addresses. For hosts
still using IPv4, the use of subnets in the host or local part of the IP address will help reduce new
applications for network numbers. In addition, most sites on today's mostly IPv4 Internet have
gotten around the Class C network address limitation by using the Classless Inter-Domain
Routing (CIDR) scheme for address notation.

Relationship of the IP Address to the Physical Address

The machine or physical address used within an organization's local area networks may be
different than the Internet's IP address. The most typical example is the 48-bit Ethernet address.
TCP/IP includes a facility called the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) that lets the
administrator create a table that maps IP addresses to physical addresses. The table is known as
the ARP cache.

Static versus Dynamic IP Addresses

The discussion above assumes that IP addresses are assigned on a static basis. In fact, many IP
addresses are assigned dynamically from a pool. Many corporate networks and online services
economize on the number of IP addresses they use by sharing a pool of IP addresses among a
large number of users. If you're an America Online user, for example, your IP address will vary
from one logon session to the next because AOL is assigning it to you from a pool that is much
smaller than AOL's base of subscribers.
My IP Information
IP Information
IP 117.199.104.117 Whois | Reverse IP | Ping | DNS
Address: Lookup | Traceroute

Hostname: 117.199.104.117

Remote
2808
Port:

Protocol: HTTP/1.1

Connectio
keep-alive
n:

Keep
115
Alive:

Location
Countr
India (IN)
y:

Region
Punjab
:

City: Ludhiana

Nib (national Internet

ISP:
Backbone)

Proxy
Proxy None / Highly
Type: Anonymous

User Agent
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8)
User Agent:
Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8 ;ShopperReports

Language: en-us, en;q=0.5

Accepted
text/html, application/xhtml+xml, application/xml;q=0.9, */*;q=0.8
Types:

Accepted
gzip, deflate
Encodings:

Accepted
ISO-8859-1, utf-8;q=0.7, *;q=0.7
Charsets:

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=
12&ved=0CB8QFjABOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fip-address
Referrer: .domaintools.com%2F&rct=j&q=ip%20address&ei
=HvVjTNm8JYnSuQPS_aWeCg&usg=AFQjCNEI5PvrEmCwjD1c_2l
EMSgJg

Internet Protocol

- The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method or protocol by which data is sent
from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on
the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other
computers on the Internet. When you send or receive data (for example, an e-mail
note or a Web page), the message gets divided into little chunks called packets.
Each of these packets contains both the sender's Internet address and the
receiver's address. Any packet is sent first to a gateway computer that understands
a small part of the Internet. The gateway computer reads the destination address
and forwards the packet to an adjacent gateway that in turn reads the destination
address and so forth across the Internet until one gateway recognizes the packet as
belonging to a computer within its immediate neighborhood or domain. That
gateway then forwards the packet directly to the computer whose address is
specified.

Because a message is divided into a number of packets, each packet can, if necessary, be sent by
a different route across the Internet. Packets can arrive in a different order than the order they
were sent in. The Internet Protocol just delivers them. It's up to another protocol, the
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to put them back in the right order.

IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is no continuing connection between the
end points that are communicating. Each packet that travels through the Internet is treated as an
independent unit of data without any relation to any other unit of data. (The reason the packets
do get put in the right order is because of TCP, the connection-oriented protocol that keeps track
of the packet sequence in a message.) In the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
communication model, IP is in layer 3, the Networking Layer.

The most widely used version of IP today is Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). However, IP
Version 6 (IPv6) is also beginning to be supported. IPv6 provides for much longer addresses and
therefore for the possibility of many more Internet users. IPv6 includes the capabilities of IPv4
and any server that can support IPv6 packets can also support IPv4 packets.

IP
Short for Internet Protocol, IP is an address of a computer or other network
device on a network using IP or TCP/IP. For example, the number "166.70.10.23" is
an example of such an address. These addresses are similar to an addresses used
on a house and is what allows data to reach the appropriate destination on a
network.

There are five classes of available IP ranges: Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E,
while only A, B and C are commonly used. Each class allows for a range of valid IP addresses.
Below is a listing of these addresses.

Class Address Range Supports

Class 1.0.0.1 to
Supports 16 million hosts on each of 127 networks.
A 126.255.255.254
Class 128.1.0.1 to
Supports 65,000 hosts on each of 16,000 networks.
B 191.255.255.254

Class 192.0.1.1 to
Supports 254 hosts on each of 2 million networks.
C 223.255.254.254

Class 224.0.0.0 to
Reserved for multicast groups.
D 239.255.255.255

Class 240.0.0.0 to Reserved for future use, or Research and

E 254.255.255.254 Development Purposes.

Ranges 127.x.x.x are reserved for loopback tests, for example, 127.0.0.1 is the common
loopback address. Range 255.255.255.255 broadcasts to all hosts on the local network.

IP address breakdown

Every IP address is broke down into four sets of octets that break down into binary to represent
the actual IP address. The below chart is an example of the IP 255.255.255.255. If you are new
to binary, we highly recommend reading our binary and hexadecimal conversions section to get a
better understanding of what we're doing in the below charts.

IP: 255 255 255 255

Binary value: 11111111 11111111 11111111 11111111

Octet value: 8 8 8 8

If we were to break down the IP "166.70.10.23", you would get the below value. The below fist
row is the IP address, the second row the binary values, and the third row the binary value
calculated to equal the total of that section of the IP address.

166 70 10 23

10100110 01000110 00001010 00010111

128+32+4+2=166 64+4+2=70 8+2=10 16+4+2+1=23

Automatically assigned addresses

There are several IP addresses that are automatically assigned when you setup a network. These
default addresses are what allow your computer and other network devices to communicate and
broadcast information over your network.
192.168.1.0 0 is the automatically assigned network address.

192.168.1.1 1 is the commonly used address used as the gateway.

192.168.1.2 2 is also a commonly used address used for a gateway.

192.168.1.25 255 is automatically assigned on most networks as the broadcast

5 address.

Getting an IP address

By default the router you use will assign each of your computers their own IP address, often
using NAT to forward the data coming from those computers to outside networks such as the
Internet. If you need to register an IP address that can be seen on the Internet, you must register
through InterNIC or use a web host that can assign you addresses.

• Use our system information tool to see what your IP address and other
system settings are.
• Additional information about network commands used to determine network
information can be found on document CH000444.
• See document CH000483 for information on determining your IP address.
• See document CH000962 for additional information about determining
another computer or a website IP address.
• Information about how to find the physical location of an IP address can be
found on document CH001044.
• See our network help section for additional help and support with computer
networking.

The Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched
internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite, also referred to as TCP/IP.

IP is the primary protocol in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite and has the task of
delivering distinguished protocol datagrams (packets) from the source host to the destination host
solely based on their addresses. For this purpose the Internet Protocol defines addressing
methods and structures for datagram encapsulation. The first major version of addressing
structure, now referred to as Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) is still the dominant protocol of
the Internet, although the successor, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is being deployed
actively worldwide.
Services provided by IP

The Internet Protocol is responsible for addressing hosts and routing datagrams (packets) from a
source host to the destination host across one or more IP networks. For this purpose the Internet
Protocol defines an addressing system that has two functions. Addresses identify hosts and
provide a logical location service. Each packet is tagged with a header that contains the meta-
data for the purpose of delivery. This process of tagging is also called encapsulation.

IP is a connectionless protocol and does not need circuit setup prior to transmission.

[edit] Reliability

The design principles of the Internet protocols assume that the network infrastructure is
inherently unreliable at any single network element or transmission medium and that it is
dynamic in terms of availability of links and nodes. No central monitoring or performance
measurement facility exists that tracks or maintains the state of the network. For the benefit of
reducing network complexity, the intelligence in the network is purposely mostly located in the
end nodes of each data transmission, cf. end-to-end principle. Routers in the transmission path
simply forward packets to next known local gateway matching the routing prefix for the
destination address.

As a consequence of this design, the Internet Protocol only provides best effort delivery and its
service can also be characterized as unreliable. In network architectural language it is a
connection-less protocol, in contrast to so-called connection-oriented modes of transmission. The
lack of reliability allows any of the following fault events to occur:

• data corruption
• lost data packets
• duplicate arrival
• out-of-order packet delivery; meaning, if packet 'A' is sent before packet 'B',
packet 'B' may arrive before packet 'A'. Since routing is dynamic and there is
no memory in the network about the path of prior packets, it is possible that
the first packet sent takes a longer path to its destination.

The only assistance that the Internet Protocol provides in Version 4 (IPv4) is to ensure that the IP
packet header is error-free through computation of a checksum at the routing nodes. This has the
side-effect of discarding packets with bad headers on the spot. In this case no notification is
required to be sent to either end node, although a facility exists in the Internet Control Message
Protocol (ICMP) to do so.

IPv6, on the other hand, has abandoned the use of IP header checksums for the benefit of rapid
forwarding through routing elements in the network.

The resolution or correction of any of these reliability issues is the responsibility of an upper
layer protocol. For example, to ensure in-order delivery the upper layer may have to cache data
until it can be passed to the application.
In addition to issues of reliability, this dynamic nature and the diversity of the Internet and its
components provide no guarantee that any particular path is actually capable of, or suitable for
performing the data transmission requested, even if the path is available and reliable. One of the
technical constraints is the size of data packets allowed on a given link. An application must
assure that it uses proper transmission characteristics. Some of this responsibility lies also in the
upper layer protocols between application and IP. Facilities exist to examine the maximum
transmission unit (MTU) size of the local link, as well as for the entire projected path to the
destination when using IPv6. The IPv4 internetworking layer has the capability to automatically
fragment the original datagram into smaller units for transmission. In this case, IP does provide
re-ordering of fragments delivered out-of-order.[1]

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is an example of a protocol that will adjust its segment size
to be smaller than the MTU. User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Internet Control Message
Protocol (ICMP) disregard MTU size thereby forcing IP to fragment oversized datagrams.[2]

[edit] IP addressing and routing

Perhaps the most complex aspects of IP are IP addressing and routing. Addressing refers to how
end hosts become assigned IP addresses and how subnetworks of IP host addresses are divided
and grouped together. IP routing is performed by all hosts, but most importantly by internetwork
routers, which typically use either interior gateway protocols (IGPs) or external gateway
protocols (EGPs) to help make IP datagram forwarding decisions across IP connected networks.

[edit] Version history

In May 1974, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) published a paper
entitled "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection."[3] The paper's authors, Vint Cerf and
Bob Kahn, described an internetworking protocol for sharing resources using packet-switching
among the nodes. A central control component of this model was the "Transmission Control
Program" (TCP) that incorporated both connection-oriented links and datagram services between
hosts. The monolithic Transmission Control Program was later divided into a modular
architecture consisting of the Transmission Control Protocol at the connection-oriented layer and
the Internet Protocol at the internetworking (datagram) layer. The model became known
informally as TCP/IP, although formally it was henceforth referenced as the Internet Protocol
Suite.

The Internet Protocol is one of the determining elements that define the Internet. The dominant
internetworking protocol in the Internet Layer in use today is IPv4; with number 4 assigned as
the formal protocol version number carried in every IP datagram. IPv4 is described in RFC 791
(1981).

The successor to IPv4 is IPv6. Its most prominent modification from Version 4 is the addressing
system. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses (c. 4 billion, or 4.3×109, addresses) while IPv6 uses 128-bit
addresses (c. 340 undecillion, or 3.4×1038 addresses). Although adoption of IPv6 has been slow,
as of June 2008, all United States government systems have demonstrated basic infrastructure
support for IPv6 (if only at the backbone level).[4]
Version numbers 0 through 3 were development versions of IPv4 used between 1977 and 1979.
[citation needed]
Version number 5 was used by the Internet Stream Protocol (IST), an experimental
stream protocol. Version numbers 6 through 9 were proposed for various protocol models
designed to replace IPv4: SIPP (Simple Internet Protocol Plus, known now as IPv6), TP/IX (RFC
1475), PIP (RFC 1621) and TUBA (TCP and UDP with Bigger Addresses, RFC 1347). Version
number 6 was eventually chosen as the official assignment for the successor Internet protocol,
subsequently standardized as IPv6.

A humorous Request for Comments that made an IPv9 protocol center of its storyline was
published on April 1, 1994 by the IETF.[5] It was intended as an April Fool's Day joke. Other
protocol proposals named "IPv9" and "IPv8" have also briefly surfaced, though these came with
little or no support from the wider industry and academia.[6]

[edit] Reference diagrams

Sample encapsulation of application data

from UDP to a Link protocol frame
Internet Protocol Suite in operation
between two hosts connected via two
routers and the corresponding layers
used at each hop
IP versions

Two versions of the Internet Protocol (IP) are in use: IP Version 4 and IP Version 6. (See IP
version history for details.) Each version defines an IP address differently. Because of its
prevalence, the generic term IP address typically still refers to the addresses defined by IPv4.

An illustration of an IP address (version 4), in both dot-decimal notation and binary.

[edit] IP version 4 addresses

Main article: IPv4#Addressing

IPv4 uses 32-bit (4-byte) addresses, which limits the address space to 4,294,967,296 (232)
possible unique addresses. IPv4 reserves some addresses for special purposes such as private
networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~270 million addresses).

IPv4 addresses are usually represented in dot-decimal notation (four numbers, each ranging from
0 to 255, separated by dots, e.g. 208.77.188.166). Each part represents 8 bits of the address, and
is therefore called an octet. In less common cases of technical writing, IPv4 addresses may be
presented in hexadecimal, octal, or binary representations. In most representations each octet is
converted individually.
[edit] IPv4 subnetting

In the early stages of development of the Internet Protocol,[1] network administrators interpreted
an IP address in two parts, network number portion and host number portion. The highest order
octet (most significant eight bits) in an address was designated as the network number and the
rest of the bits were called the rest field or host identifier and were used for host numbering
within a network.

The early method soon proved inadequate as additional networks developed that were
independent from the existing networks already designated by a network number. In 1981, the
Internet addressing specification was revised with the introduction of classful network
architecture.[2]

Classful network design allowed for a larger number of individual network assignments and fine-
grained subnetwork design. The first three bits of the most significant octet of an IP address was
defined as the class of the address. Three classes (A, B, and C) were defined for universal unicast
addressing. Depending on the class derived, the network identification was based on octet
boundary segments of the entire address. Each class used successively additional octets in the
network identifier, thus reducing the possible number of hosts in the higher order classes (B and
C). The following table gives an overview of this now obsolete system.

Historical classful network architecture

Cla First octet in Range of Networ Host Number of Number of

ss binary first octet k ID ID networks addresses

224-2 =
A 0XXXXXXX 0 - 127 a b.c.d 27 = 128
16,777,214

B 10XXXXXX 128 - 191 a.b c.d 214 = 16,384 216-2 = 65,534

C 110XXXXX 192 - 223 a.b.c d 221 = 2,097,152 28-2 = 254

Although classful network design was a successful developmental stage, it proved unscalable in
the face of the rapid expansion of the Internet, and in the mid 1990s it started to become
abandoned because of the introduction of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) for the
allocation of IP address blocks and new rules for routing IPv4 packets. CIDR is based on
variable-length subnet masking (VLSM) to allow allocation and routing based on arbitrary-
length prefixes.

Today, remnants of classful network concepts function only in a limited scope as the default
configuration parameters of some network software and hardware components (e.g. netmask),
and in the technical jargon used in network administrators' discussions.

[edit] IPv4 private addresses

Main article: Private network

Early network design, when global end-to-end connectivity was envisioned for communications
with all Internet hosts, intended that IP addresses be uniquely assigned to a particular computer
or device. However, it was found that this was not always necessary as private networks
developed and public address space needed to be conserved.

Computers not connected to the Internet, such as factory machines that communicate only with
each other via TCP/IP, need not have globally-unique IP addresses. Three ranges of IPv4
addresses for private networks, one range for each class (A, B, C), were reserved in RFC 1918.
These addresses are not routed on the Internet and thus their use need not be coordinated with an
IP address registry.

Today, when needed, such private networks typically connect to the Internet through network
address translation (NAT).

IANA-reserved private IPv4 network ranges

No. of
Start End
addresses

24-bit Block (/8 prefix, 1 x 10.255.255.2

10.0.0.0 16,777,216
A) 55

20-bit Block (/12 prefix, 172.16.0. 172.31.255.2

1,048,576
16 x B) 0 55

16-bit Block (/16 prefix, 192.168. 192.168.255.

65,536
256 x C) 0.0 255

Any user may use any of the reserved blocks. Typically, a network administrator will divide a
block into subnets; for example, many home routers automatically use a default address range of
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.0.255 (192.168.0.0/24).

[edit] IPv4 address exhaustion

Main article: IPv4 address exhaustion

The IP version 4 address space is rapidly nearing exhaustion of available, officially assignable
address blocks.

[edit] IP version 6 addresses

Main article: IPv6 address
An illustration of an IP address (version 6), in hexadecimal and binary.

The rapid exhaustion of IPv4 address space, despite conservation techniques, prompted the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to explore new technologies to expand the Internet's
addressing capability. The permanent solution was deemed to be a redesign of the Internet
Protocol itself. This next generation of the Internet Protocol, aimed to replace IPv4 on the
Internet, was eventually named Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) in 1995[3][4] The address size
was increased from 32 to 128 bits or 16 octets, which, even with a generous assignment of
network blocks, is deemed sufficient for the foreseeable future. Mathematically, the new address
space provides the potential for a maximum of 2128, or about 3.403 × 1038 unique addresses.

The new design is not based on the goal to provide a sufficient quantity of addresses alone, but
rather to allow efficient aggregation of subnet routing prefixes to occur at routing nodes. As a
result, routing table sizes are smaller, and the smallest possible individual allocation is a subnet
for 264 hosts, which is the square of the size of the entire IPv4 Internet. At these levels, actual
address utilization rates will be small on any IPv6 network segment. The new design also
provides the opportunity to separate the addressing infrastructure of a network segment—that is
the local administration of the segment's available space—from the addressing prefix used to
route external traffic for a network. IPv6 has facilities that automatically change the routing
prefix of entire networks should the global connectivity or the routing policy change without
requiring internal redesign or renumbering.

The large number of IPv6 addresses allows large blocks to be assigned for specific purposes and,
where appropriate, to be aggregated for efficient 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).

All modern desktop and enterprise server operating systems include native support for the IPv6
protocol, but it is not yet widely deployed in other devices, such as home networking routers,
voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and multimedia equipment, and network peripherals.

[edit] IPv6 private addresses

Just as IPv4 reserves addresses for private or internal networks, there are blocks of addresses set
aside in IPv6 for private addresses. In IPv6, these are referred to as unique local addresses
(ULA). RFC 4193 sets aside the routing prefix fc00::/7 for this block which is divided into two /
8 blocks with different implied policies (cf. IPv6) The addresses include a 40-bit pseudorandom
number that minimizes the risk of address collisions if sites merge or packets are misrouted.

Early designs (RFC 3513) used a different block for this purpose (fec0::), dubbed site-local
addresses. However, the definition of what constituted sites remained unclear and the poorly
defined addressing policy created ambiguities for routing. The address range specification was
abandoned and must no longer be used in new systems.

Addresses starting with fe80: — called link-local addresses — are assigned only in the local link
area. The addresses are generated usually automatically by the operating system's IP layer for
each network interface. This provides instant automatic network connectivity for any IPv6 host
and means that if several hosts connect to a common hub or switch, they have an instant
communication path via their link-local IPv6 address. This feature is used extensively, and
invisibly to most users, in the lower layers of IPv6 network administration (cf. Neighbor
Discovery Protocol).

IP blocking and firewalls

Main articles: IP blocking and Firewall (computer)

Firewalls are common on today's Internet. For increased network security, they control access to
private networks 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

Main article: Network address translation

Multiple client devices can appear to share IP addresses: 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[5].

Most commonly, the NAT device maps TCP or UDP port numbers on the outside to individual
private addresses on the inside. Just as a telephone number may have site-specific extensions, the
port numbers are site-specific extensions to an IP address.
In small home networks, NAT functions usually take place in a 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.

[edit] Diagnostic tools

Computer operating systems provide various diagnostic tools to examine their network interface
and address configuration. Windows provides the command-line interface tool ipconfig and
users of Unix-like systems can use ifconfig, netstat, route, lanstat, ifstat, or iproute2
utilities to accomplish the task.

Services provided by IP

IP has two major functions: addressing and fragmentation. With regards to addressing, IP
provides an unreliable, connectionless datagram delivery service. If any errors should occur
during the transmission of an IP datagram, IP does not attempt to correct the error. It will discard
the datagram and send an ICMP error message back to the host from which the datagram
originated. IP treats each datagram as an independent entity — a collection of datagrams sent to
a particular host do not have to follow the same path to that host, and these datagrams may also
get delivered out of order.

The maximum size of an IP datagram is determined by the maximum transmission unit (MTU)
for the physical link layer. The link layer can (and is likely to) change as the packet moves from
source to destination. Therefore, the MTU can (and is likely to) change over the route. If an IP
datagram is larger than the MTU of the link layer, the datagram is fragmented to fit within the
bounds of the MTU. These fragments are not reassembled until they reach the destination host,
and if any of the fragments fail to reach their destination, the entire datagram has to be
retransmitted. IP is responsible for fragmenting and reassembling the datagram.

IP merely provides a best effort service to get the datagrams to their destination. The datagrams
may get there out of order, or may not get delivered at all. The task of ensuring that the
datagrams get there in order and are all delivered is assigned to TCP.