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6 The Internet Protocol (IP)

This protocol is responsible for routing packets of data around the Internet, analogous to how the post office is responsible for routing letters around the mail network.

Like with the post office, data on the Internet has to be labeled with a source and destination address, called the IP address.

The IP address is a sequence of bytes that uniquely identifies every computer on the Internet.

6.1 Terminology

6.2 Two Common Versions

There are two commonly used versions of IP: version 4 and version 6.

IP version 4 is referred to as “IPv4” or just plain “IP”.

IP version 6 is usually explicitly specified as “IPv6”.

You can tell the difference between the two by glancing at an IP address:

The main difference is the number of bytes that make up the address space. IPv4 uses 4 bytes per address, and IPv6 uses 16 bytes.

6.3 Subnets

Every IP address is split into two portions.

The initial bits of the IP address identify individual networks.

The trailing bits of an IP address identify individual hosts (i.e. computers) on that network.

These individual networks are called subnets and the number of hosts they can support depends on how many bits they’re reserved for identifying hosts on that subnet.

As a contrived non-Internet example, let’s look at an 8-bit “address”, and we’ll say the first 6 bits are the network number and the last 2 bits are the host number.

So an address like this:

00010111

is split into two parts (because we said the first 6 bits were the network number):

Network  Host
-------  ----
000101   11

So this is network 5 (101 binary), host 3 (11 binary).

The network part always comes before the host part.

Note that if there are only two “host” bits, there can only be 4 hosts on the network, numbered 0, 1, 2, and 3 (or 00, 01, 10, and 11 in binary).

And with IP, it would actually only be two hosts, because hosts with all zero bits or all one bits are reserved.

The next chapters will look at specific subnet examples for IPv4 and IPv6. The important part now is that each address is split into network and host parts, with the network part first.

6.4 Additional IP-layer Protocols

There are some related protocols that also work in concert with IP and at the same layer in the network stack.

Users commonly interface with ICMP when using the ping utility. This uses ICMP “echo request” and “echo response” messages.

The traceroute utility uses ICMP “time exceeded” messages to find out how packets are being routed.

6.5 Private Networks

There are private networks hidden behind routers that do not have globally unique IP addresses on their machines. (Though they do have unique addresses within the LAN itself.)

This is made possible through the magic of a mechanism called NAT (Network Address Translation). But this is a story for the future.

For now, let’s just pretend all our addresses are globally unique.

6.6 Static versus Dynamic IP Addresses, and DHCP

If you have clients hitting your website, or you have a server that you want to SSH into repeatedly, you’ll need a static IP. This means you get a globally-unique IP address assigned to you and it never changes.

This is like having a house number that never changes. If you need people to be able to find your house repeatedly, this needs to be the case.

But since there are a limited number of IPv4 addresses, static IPs cost more money. Often an ISP will have a block of IPs on a subnet that they dynamically allocate on-demand.

This means when you reboot your broadband modem, it might end up with a different public-facing IP address when it comes back to life. (Unless you’ve paid for a static IP.)

Indeed, when you connect your laptop to WiFi, you also typically get a dynamic IP address. Your computer connects to the LAN and broadcasts a packet saying, “Hey, I’m here! Can anyone tell me my IP address? Pretty please with sugar on top?”

And this is OK because people aren’t generally trying to connect to servers on your laptop. It’s usually the laptop that’s connecting to other servers.

How does it work? On one of the servers on the LAN is a program that is listening for such requests, which conform to DHCP (the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). The DHCP server keeps track of which IP addresses on the subnet are already allocated for use, and which are free. It allocates a free one and sends back a DHCP response that has your laptop’s new IP address, as well as other data about the LAN your computer needs (like subnet mask, etc.).

If you have WiFi at home, you very likely already have a DHCP server. Most routers come from your ISP with DHCP already set up, which is how your laptop gets its IP address on your LAN.

6.7 Reflect

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