ALEF.Net - ALEF Administration

ALEF.Net - ALEF Administration - About IP Address

ALEF Home / ALEF Administration / About IP Address

ALEF ADMINISTRATION - ABOUT IP ADDRESS

There are often times when it is useful, even necessary, to know what your IP Address is, especially when working with network and Internet connectivity and access issues.

It is easy to determine. In fact, every Website has the ability to determine it, and most do so to identify you, to track your browsing habits, and to assist in locating you if required by the appropriate authorities.

While some computers have only one IP Address, most have two different ones, and computers that are not on a network and do not access the Internet probably don't have any.

The IP Address has the form nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn, consisting of four numbers from 0-255 that are separated by periods, and is used to uniquely identify each computer on a network (either your local area network, or LAN, consisting of the computers in your home or office or the Big Network, the wide area network, or WAN, the Internet, consisting of all of the computers in the world that are connected to it).

The modem you received from your cable or DSL provider allows a single computer to access the Internet. That connection is given an identifying IP Address from their available range. This is your Internet IP Address, the one you will see when you click on the IP Address feature in the left column of the ALEF Home Page and the one that all entities on the Internet see when you interact with them.

A second device called a Router allows multiple computers to share the Internet connection provided by the modem (more and more often, the two functions are delivered from a single device). All of the computers after the Router, the ones comprising your local area network, are each given numbers from a different range of IP Addresses which, under proper circumstances, are not visible to the Internet.

These numbers traditionally have a 192 or a 10 in the first position before the first period. This allows the computers on your LAN to share files, programs, printers, and other devices. You can determine these numbers in Windows by typing IPConfig in a command prompt window, on the Mac by typing ifconfig in a terminal (or by going to Network in System Preferences), and in Linux by typing /sbin/ifconfig in a terminal.

No matter which of the computers on your local area network is accessing the Internet, only the shared Internet IP Address is visible to the world.

George ALEFantes

ALEF Home / ALEF Administration / About IP Address

ALEF.Net provides access to knowledge and information and exposure to traditional and Internet art forms across the Web, around the world, and throughout time, featuring works of artists and thinkers whom we celebrate and to whom the efforts of this Site are dedicated.