Introduction
It's easy to take the internet, in all its vastness, for granted.
In reality, there are a lot of intricacies that lay in-between your devices and their connection to the internet.
This short guide will cover the basics of how our devices are uniquely identified, what they're identified with, and, ultimately, what comes between them and the internet.
IP Addresses
Much like all homes have a unique address associated with it, each device connected to the internet has a unique IP (Internet Protocol) Address
identifies which machine information is going to or from
was originally created with 32-bits
called IPv4
4 clusters of 8 bit decimal values separated by decimal points
capable of storing approx. 4.3 million addresses
ex. 123. 3. 24. 181
too many devices, not enough addresses
IPv6 was introduced
8 clusters of 16 bit hex values separated by colons points
capable of storing over 3.4×10^38 devices
more than 100 times the number of atoms on earth's surface!
ex: cd12:af54:24a2:0:0:0:181b
DHCP and DNS
So how do we even get these addresses? Who determines it for us?
DHCP, or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, is a server that automatically assigns IP addresses to devices!
So, we have an address. Now what?
Well, to access an individual website, you're hopefully not going to type out its IP address manually.
That's where DNS (Domain Name System) comes in, mapping each IPv6 address with a domain name, like google.com, for instance.
Access Points
So apart from IPv6, another way to deal with the IPv4 issue (where, recall, there weren't enough addresses to support all devices) was through assigning multiple devices to the same IP address.
Basically, instead of being assigned to a single device, an IP address is assigned to a router that might exist in your local library or house, which basically manages all devices in that specific area.
information will travel to and from the router, and that router will be responsible for relaying information to the correct device within its area
so technically, devices under routers aren't connected publicly to the internet
rather, routers are connected to the internet publicly, and our devices are connected to the router privately
Final Thoughts
So, to recap, between our devices and the internet, there exist:
a DHCP server
a DNS server
an access point
Thanks for reading!
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