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Currently, two versions of the IP protocol have become widespread: IPv4 and IPv6. Since the InfiNet devices currently support only the IPv4 protocol, the current article will only detail the operation of the IPv4 protocol.
The IP protocol
IP
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addresses
The IP protocol provides 32 bits for addressing the nodes in the network, which are usually divided into four octets and written in decimal form, separating the octets with dots (Figure 2). Examples of IP addresses examples:
- 10.94.200.7
- 192.17.0.0
- 201.15.2.255
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Figure 2 - Structure of the IP address structure |
Network mask
The IP protocol allows to group the addresses in a network using network masks. A netmask is applied to an IP address, dividing it in two parts: a network ID and a host ID. The devices connected to the same network will have the same network ID and different host IDs. To ensure that the network ID matches on all the devices of a subnet, use the same network mask values when configuring the devices. The set of host IDs allows inferring the number of devices that can be connected to this network and specifies the IP addresses that can be used by the devices.
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