IP's, routers and future changes...
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- Robert D. Wagers
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For some reason, when the term IP (Internet Protocol) address is discussed, people freeze up. I guess it has to do with the geekiness of the term.
Fact is, just about everyone over the age of 4-5 has been dealing with (and even "programming") similar addresses all their life. How so? By dialing a phone number. To reach a specific phone anywhere on the planet, you have to put in enough information for the phone computers to "route" your call to the phone you want. This might involve putting in the area code, exchange number and phone number. You might also have to put in a country code and/or an extension number to get to a specific phone. So a phone number might take the form of:
111-222-3333 or
010-111-222-3333 or
010-111-222-3333-444
That is, computers need enough identifiers to locate any specific phone on the planet. Looks a lot like an IP address doesn't it?
Similarly, most everyone has been dealing with the world wide mail system all their life. To pinpoint a specific destination for mail, you have to provide the name, house/apt number, street name, City, State, Zip code. International addressing schemes might be a little different, but the idea is to have enough information to pinpoint a very specific location anywhere in the world.
Same thing with IP addresses
Back in the 1970s early 1980s, it was recognized that the internet was going to be a big deal. It was also recognized that an international naming standard was needed to identify every addressable device in the world. After all, how else are you going to get a particular chunk of data to the right computer?
By September 1981, a group of geeks finalized a naming scheme called Classful IP Addressing (aka, IPv4). Quite a mouthful and they were absolutely climaxing over their achievement. Not only did this allow addressing every computer on the planet, but the mystique of their knowledge guaranteed their job security… laugh out loud. This is a scheme that is little understood by most mere mortals.
Turns out, every device in the world can be specifically isolated with an address of the form: nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn. For example, 192.168.1.80. Behind the scenes, it's all binary. The standard they adopted allowed for specific addressing of 4,294,967,296 devices.
Then, of course, the geek programmers got hold of it and made it all complicated. They started reserving certain parts of the IP address for certain purposes. First thing you know, they had class A, B and C networks, sub netting, etc.. Network administrators get all misty eyed when they can do really neat stuff, like block porn sites to the accounting department.
If you have a trace of geek in you and you want to read more on this IP stuff, here is a good link for more information www.3com.com/other/pdfs/infra/corpinfo/en_US/501302.pdf
Routers
If you have more than one computer in your house or business, then you might be running a router. The internet "sees" your router's IP address (external) but not your computer's address (internal) unless you allow it by opening up little windows (ports) for certain things. It is the router's job to make sure incoming data is sent (routed) to the right computer. IP addresses and port numbers are used to accomplish this.
If you want to read more on how ports are opened/forwarded on your particular router, you can probably find some information here: www.portforward.com/
IPs Expanding
The early geeks were far sighted, but not far sighted enough. None of them conceived that the internet would get as large as it has. With internet access expanding to all manner of devices (cell phones, TVs, gaming systems, automobiles, even appliances, etc.), we are running out of IP addresses. No kidding… over 4 billion is not nearly enough.
So guess what? There is a new scheme being implemented where addresses will be of the form X:X:X:X:X:X:X:X. All based on geeky stuff like hexadecimal and binary codes. The geeks call it IPv6. The new scheme will support over 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 devices. That should hold us for a while. So don't be surprised if someday your IP address will look something like this:
1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A - Last Edit: 17 years 8 months ago by .
- "Everyone has to get knocked-down every once-in-a-while, otherwise you'll never learn how to get-back-up!
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A quote attributed to my Grandpa Wagers
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- GollumX
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I've known of the IPv6 initiative for a while now... but that was a heck of a good read. Very well written Wage.
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- Brad Baker
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- It will still be a while before we run out of IPv4 addresses, however, a nice informative post. Thanks.
- Brad Baker
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- GollumX
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Ian Beer wrote:
Not much hope for those of us who can't even remember an 11 digit mobile phone number then?eh? where i live phone numbers consist of only seven digits... and i still can't remember any numbers.
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- Ian Beer
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- Think I might be tempted to move, my land line number has 11 digits, including the 4 digit area code, which has to be used most of the time as the greater city area here has a number of different varieties, and my mobile also has......just a minute......11 digits, none of which I am greatly familiar with.
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