First part of the article series Internet Access. There more articles to come, because of the scale of this article series. In this article I talk about different addresses and devices.
Devices
There are three particular device-series to use when talking about networks, there are
- Hub, this device is somewhat oldest and it’s not anymore used as much as switches. Hub works this way: You send something and everything that is connected to that hub, receives the same data. There can’t be to senders at the same time so that one who uses less broadcast goes first. Hub doesn’t need own IP or MAC-address to work. It doesn’t care what devices are connected to it’s ports
- Switches are used most of the time in big corporations where are over 100 separately workstations. Like hubs, they doesn’t require own Ip- nor MAC-address to work, but unlike hub, switches need to know MAC-addresses of all devices behind their ports. Switches uses ARP-protocol to map MAC- and Ip-addresses.
- Routers are the way point to connect your own devices to World wide web. Unlike switches and hubs, routers have MAC and Ip-addresses and they require to know Ip- and MAC-addresses of the devices that are connected to it’s ports.
MAC-address
You might want to know what are these MAC-address, because you might know what Ip-address stands for. MAC-address is Media Access Control -address that is specified to one workstation or device. This means that specific address is in physical form. MAC-address is 48-bit long and first 24-bits tells us producer and other 24-bits tell the order and number of that product-series . Example of MAC-address could be some like this 05-8c-40-9b-00-gf (I created this one out of my head, but you should see the picture). ARP-protocol is used to map Ip- and MAC-addresses.
Ip-addresses
Well there are more to say about this subject that is relevant to say. Ip-address can be changing or it’s domain address to some website, usually home computers doesn’t have permanent Ip-addresses so every time you start computer your DCHP-server gives you new admissible IP-address. Usually the last numbers are the ones that change, because the subnetmask is the same all the time. To check is your Ip-address permanent or changing type cmd to your Windows search box and the type this: ipconfig /all . If there is “Yes” word in DHCP enabled, then your Ip-address is changing.
DCHP-server also gives you default gateway and possible address for DNS-server. Usually it’s enabled automatically retrieve this all. But if it not, you might have this kind of Ip-address: 169.254.0.1 – 169.254.255.254. This means that Windows has taken one free IP-address to use between that zone.
There are some private Ip-address that can’t be found on Public use, they are created to serve enterprises and schools to create their own interior local are network. These are
- 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
- 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
- 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255
There are two main protocol IPv4 and IPv6, difference is calculated in bits. You see that now a days devices van have two Ip-addresses. IPv4 is 32-bit and with it we can have 2^32 (more like 4 billion different address) and with IPv6 that is 128-bit we can have 2^128 different address.
Example of IP-address could be: 67.22.246.01
– Tuomas Törmä
Sources
- Studies in Haaga-Helia spring 2013 Course Basics of Computers and networks Teacher Petri Hirvonen
Tuomas Törmä 