Windows Vista :: Expert Knowledge: IP Addresses and How They Work ::
You don’t need to know this information in order to implement a Windows network, but understanding what Internet Protocol IP addresses are and how they work can be a great help when troubleshooting network problems. TCP/IP uses an IP address to identify each computer or device on a network: • An IPv4 address is written in decimal numbers and takes the form x.x.x.x, where each x is a number between 0 and 255- for example, 216.43.28.244. • An IPv6 address is written in hexadecimal notation base 16: using the numbers 0–9, and the letters A– F. An IPv6 address consists of eight groups of hexadecimal characters separated by colons. Written out in full, an IPv6 address might look like this: 3dce:ffff:0000:2f3b:02ba:00ff:fe28:9c5a. You can also compact many IPv6 addresses by suppressing any leading zeroes in a section. For example, the compact form of the previous address is 3dce:ffff:0:2f3b:2ba:ff:fe28:9c5a. Usually, it’s easiest to write IPv6 addresses out in full, because they’re easier to read that way. There’s also another convention for compacting IPv6 addresses: if part of the address contains only zeroes, you can omit that part, and indicate its omission by putting a double colon in the appropriate place. For example, the previous address can be written as 3dce:ffff::2f3b:2ba:ff:fe28:9c5a, with the double colon indicating that the 0000 section is missing. In IPv4, IP addresses are either public or private. Public IP addresses are centrally assigned by the Internet’s registration authorities, which keep detailed records of which organization or individual has which IP address. Private IP addresses are IP addresses that you can assign yourself for internal use within your network. Private IP addresses are nonroutable, which means that packets sent to private IP addresses can’t be passed across routers and so can’t escape from your network to the Internet. IPv4 has three private address ranges. The range 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 is used for large organizations. The range 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 is used for medium-sized organizations. The range 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 is used for small networks and home networks. Windows’ Internet Connection Sharing ICS uses the last-mentioned range for home and small-office networks. A computer can get an IP address in three ways: DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol DHCP is a protocol for assigning IP addresses automatically to computers and networked devices on demand and reclaims them when they’re no longer being used. In a Windows domain–based network, the DHCP service runs on a server for example, Windows 2003 Server to allocate the addresses. Many devices designed for sharing Internet access in the home or small office, such as residential gateways, implement a basic DHCP service as well. ICS includes a DHCP allocator, which is a stripped-down DHCP server. IPv6 has a stateless autoconfiguration mechanism that allows it to automatically configure its own IP address using one or more network prefixes that it gets from an IPv6 router on its network. Set a Fixed Address Manually You can set a fixed address manually. In most cases, using DHCP is more efficient than allocating fixed IP addresses manually, because DHCP prevents a computer that’s switched off or disconnected from keeping an IP address when another computer might need it. But in some cases it’s useful to keep a fixed IP address for a given computer so that you always know which address it’s using. Besides, if you’re using only half a dozen or so computers and other devices on your network, you won’t run short of IP addresses. Self-Allocation For when you haven’t set a fixed IP address manually and no DHCP server is reachable, Windows can allocate itself an IP address automatically, a feature called Automatic Private IP Addressing the acronym is APIPA, in case you’re not using DHCP or fixed IP addresses or your DHCP allocator isn’t available. If Windows doesn’t get a response to its request for an IP address, it automatically chooses an IP address in the range 169.254.0.1 to 169.254.0.254 and checks to see if any other computer already on the network is already using this address. If the IP address is free, Windows Home assigns itself that address; if not, it chooses another, checks that, and so on. Windows keeps checking the network for a DHCP server and, if it finds one, applies for an IP address, to which it then switches. Planning Your Network This section discusses how to go about planning your network. You need to make the following decisions: • Should the network be client/server or peer-to-peer? • Should the network be wired, wireless, or a mixture of the two? • If the network will be wired, which wired networking technology will you use? • Where will you keep your files? • Which resources will you share on the network? Client/Server or Peer-to-Peer? Most home networks and many home-office networks are peer-to-peer networks, but you should evaluate creating a client/server network instead of a peer-to-peer network. Even if your network needs are relatively modest, it’s worth considering having a server, especially if you have a spare computer, or a pensioned-off old laptop or desktop, that you’d like to get a bit more use out of. A server doesn’t have to have a fast processor or a ton of RAM. Nor does it need to be running Windows Vista. If you’ve gotten a new computer because your old computer couldn’t handle Windows Vista, you might be able to continue using that old computer with a less demanding operating system on it- for example, Windows XP or Linux if you can handle Linux. The server doesn’t have to manage the computers on the network- it just has to provide resources and services to authenticated users. Providing Services via Dedicated Devices Instead of centralizing resources on a server that you keep running all the time, so that you don’t have individual computers sharing resources, you can add to the network dedicated devices for sharing resources. For example, you could add a DSL router to share your Internet connection, or a print server to share one or more of your printers. You can also get stand-alone, dedicated file servers designed for home-office or small-office use, although these tend to be far more expensive than a humble PC providing equivalent capabilities. Each of these is an independent device that connects to your network hub. Once it’s connected, the device can be accessed by any computer that’s running. |
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