The Internet Protocol is the main communications protocol used to translate network packets across computer networks using the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS). Since the Internet Protocol takes care of routing packets, it is one of the main protocols behind the Internet itself.
The first major version of the IP protocol, IPv4 is the completely dominant protocol on the Internet. Its successor is IPv6, which is increasingly being used.
The Internet Protocol is responsible for addressing hosts and routing packets from the source host to the destination through one or more IP networks. For this reason, the Internet Protocol defines an addressing system that has two functions:
- guest recognition
- providing a logical location
The roots of the Internet Protocol go back to 1974, when Vint Cerf and Bob Khan published a paper called A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection. The IPv4 protocol was described in RFC 791 in 1981.
