Review of IPv4 Addressing

Review of IPv4 Addressing
One of the most important topics in any discussion of TCP/IP is IP addressing. An
IP address
is a numeric identifier assigned to each interface on an IP network. It designates the location of
a device on the network. An IP address is a software address, not a hardware address. A hardware
address is hard-coded on a network interface card (NIC) and used for finding hosts on a
local network. The hardware address is also known as the MAC, or Media Access Control,
address. In Cisco terms, the hardware address is known as the burned-in address (BIA). IP
addressing was designed to allow a host on one network to communicate with a host on a different
network, regardless of the type of LANs in which the hosts are participating.
Before we get into the more difficult aspects of IPv4 addressing, let’s look at some of
the basics.