Putting a Name on the Shipping Label
The IP protocol defines how computers forward IP packets from
end to end across an internetwork. However, most people tend to use names
instead of addresses. Before a computer can send a packet to a particular
destination IP address, the user must either supply the IP address of the other
computer or a name for the other computer. For instance, Hannah probably typed
in something like http://www.fredsco.com; she must somehow correlate the name
(such as http://www.fredsco.com) to the corresponding IP address (such as
3.3.3.3).
The process by which Hannah figures out the IP address of
another computer, based on the name, is called name resolution.
Name resolution is covered in Chapter
13. For now, just to help complete the circle, keep in mind that people do
refer to the name of the other computer, and the sending computer figures out
the corresponding IP address.
Now that you know some of the basics of IP addressing and IP
routing, the rest of this chapter looks into more details about IP addresses.
After that, Chapter 11, "Knowing
Where to Turn at Each Intersection (Router)," looks more closely at routing. Chapter 12, "Painting the Road Signs on
Your Interstate (Internetwork)," examines how routers learn routes, and Chapter 13 covers how a computer
resolves the name used by the user into the IP address that name implies.
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