An IP address (internet protocol address) is the numerical designation of each device that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.
An IP address has two main functions:
- identification for the network interface.
- location addressing
The designers of the Internet Protocol designed IP addresses as a 32-bit number system (known as IPv4). Due to the large growth of the Internet and the devices that are connected to the Internet, IPv4 Internet addresses are running out and a move to the newer IPv6 (128 bit) will be necessary.
IP addresses are in binary format, but are stored in text files and displayed so that people can easily read and remember them. For example, the resulting format looks like this: 173.194.78.94. The address 173.194.78.94 in binary code looks like this:
00110001001101110011001100101110001100010011100100110100001011100011011100111000001011100011100100110100
