Abstract
- It is like your house address, it provides the specific information to locate a Host in an Computer Network
Important
Unlike MAC addresses, which are flat and identify individual devices on the same physical local network, IP addresses use a hierarchical addressing scheme.
This hierarchy enables efficient routing of data packets across the vast interconnected networks of the internet.
In conclusion, IP address helps in routing between networks, while the MAC address helps identify devices on the same local network.
IPv4
- IP Address that consists of 4 Byte
IPv6
- IP Address that consists of 16 Byte
Private IP Address
- IP Address that are for internal networks and aren’t directly routable on the Internet. They are reused across different Computer Network
| Private IP Addresses | |
|---|---|
| IPv4 | There are 3 private IPv4 ranges: - 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix) - 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix) - 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix) |
| IPv6 | Start with the prefix FD00::/8 |
Public IP Address
- The IP Address Host uses to communicate with other hosts over the Internet
Special IP Address
- IP Address that has special meanings or purposes otherwise just locating a Host on the Computer Network
Unspecified Address
- The Unspecified Address is
0.0.0.0 - Applications listen on address
0.0.0.0, indicates that they are willing to accept incoming network connections from any available Network Interface on the Host - Useful when you want the application to be accessible from multiple interfaces or IP Address
IP Broadcast Address
- The IP Broadcast Address is
255.255.255.255, all data with this address will be sent to all devices on the same Computer Network. The data won’t be forwarded by Network Router - Useful for tasks such as DHCP where a device needs to obtain an IP Address from a DHCP server, and the DHCP server needs to broadcast its availability to all devices on the network
Useful CLI Tool
ipinfo/cli
- IP geolocation and other types of IP data
- Install with
brew install ipinfo-cli
asn
- A more advanced ipinfo/cli without paying any money
- Install with
brew install asn - Refer to the Github Page for a list of features
Caution
It seems like it isn’t working well for IPv6, use ipinfo/cli for IPv6 instead.