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Can you enlighten me on IP addresses?

Can you enlighten me on IP addresses? How is one identified and can you directly address one?

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Every computer or host on a network has its own unique IP address, which is used to identify it on the local network.

If you need to contact a computer, you can simply recall its IP Address in the application your using, or use the host's DNS name in the case there is a DNS server on the network.

Whichever the case, most people tend to use the computer's name, rather than its IP Address, because it's much easier to remember 10 names than 10 IP Addresses!

A DNS server contains all name-to-ip mappings, so once it receives a query for a particular name, it will send the correct IP Address that is associated to that name.

This was first published in August 2003

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