Appendixb - Basic Ip Concepts; Ip Addresses - D-Link DI-304 User Manual

Appendix B – Basic IP Concepts
This appendix describes some basic IP concepts, the TCP/IP addressing scheme and
show how to assign IP Addresses.
When setting up the router, you must make sure all ports to be utilized on the router have
valid IP addresses. Even if you will not use the ISDN or WAN ports, you should, at the
very least, make sure the LAN port is assigned a valid IP address. This is required for
telnet, in-band SNMP management, and related functions such as "trap" handling and
TFTP firmware download.

IP Addresses

The Internet Protocol (IP) was designed for routing data between network sites all over
the world, and was later adapted to allow routing between networks (often referred to as
"subnets") within any site. IP includes a system by which a unique number can be assigned
to each of the millions of networks and each of the computers on those networks. Such a
number is called an IP address.
To make IP addresses easy to understand, the originators of IP adopted a system of
representation called "dotted decimal" or "dotted quad" notation. Below are examples of
IP addresses written in this format:
201.202.203.204 189.21.241.56 125.87.0.1
Each of the four values in an IP address is the ordinary decimal (base 10) representation of
a value that a computer can handle using eight "bits" (binary digits — 1s and 0s). The dots
are simply convenient visual separators.
Zeros are often used as placeholders in dotted decimal notation; 189.21.241.56 can
therefore also appear as 189.021.241.056.
IP networks are divided into three classes on the basis of size. A full IP address contains a
network portion and a "host" (device) portion. The network and host portions of the
address are different lengths for different classes of networks, as shown in the table below.