What You Need To Know - ZyXEL Communications P-660N-T1A User Manual

Chapter 7 LAN Setup

7.1.2 What You Need To Know

The following terms and concepts may help as you read this chapter.
IP Address
IP addresses identify individual devices on a network. Every networking device
(including computers, servers, routers, printers, etc.) needs an IP address to
communicate across the network. These networking devices are also known as
hosts.
Subnet Mask
Subnet masks determine the maximum number of possible hosts on a network.
You can also use subnet masks to divide one network into multiple sub-networks.
DHCP
A DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server can assign your ZyXEL
Device an IP address, subnet mask, DNS and other routing information when it's
turned on.
RIP
RIP (Routing Information Protocol) allows a router to exchange routing
information with other routers.
Multicast
Traditionally, IP packets are transmitted in one of either two ways - Unicast (1
sender - 1 recipient) or Broadcast (1 sender - everybody on the network).
Multicast delivers IP packets to a group of hosts on the network - not everybody
and not just 1.
IGMP
IGMP (Internet Group Multicast Protocol) is a network-layer protocol used to
establish membership in a Multicast group - it is not used to carry user data.
There are three versions of IGMP. IGMP version 2 and 3 are improvements over
version 1, but IGMP version 1 is still in wide use.
DNS
DNS (Domain Name System) is for mapping a domain name to its corresponding
IP address and vice versa. The DNS server is extremely important because
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P-660N-T1A User's Guide