Why your IP address matters and describing it in terms that are easier to understand

Why your IP address matters and describing it in terms that are easier to understand

Preface: This article covers a way to describe computer networking in a manner that is more relatable as it pertains to a basic setup to connect your computer to your laser

 

Info
Note that this article is to break things down in a very narrow scope of how to set up an IP address using phone numbers as an example. There are way more advanced network techniques that can facilitate cross network communication etc, this article does not claim to be 100% IP perfect etc, just trying to relate a subject in a basic form.

Idea
If you feel like you have no idea of what the words IP, Host ID, Network ID, Subnet mask etc mean, then it would be good to hop to the bottom of this article first to read some of the basic definitions first.

Scenario 1: Ethernet IP compared to a phone number

The Scenario:

      Ok, so you have your laptop that connects to the internet over WIFI and you have your hardwired Ethernet connection that you are going to use to connect to your Laser Machine directly (ADHOC type connection). Think of the two connections (your WI-FI and hardwired) as two completely separate connections, like as if you had a work phone vs a personal phone.  

       Your WI-FI phone is a personal smart phone, it does a lot for you in the background and minimizes how much configuration you have to do to make it work. You basically entered your WI-FI Network ID (SSID) and password to join and viola…it all just works. Not knowing what all goes on in the background is ok for the WI-FI connection but for your hardwired it will be more important. There is a lot going on in the background that your Router is handling. As devices connect and disconnect to the network, they are automatically assigned IP's by the router by a service built into the router called DHCP. DHCP is like a phone number registry that is dynamic. Meaning you may not always be assigned the same phone number to each device. That is OK for this type connection, but is not OK for your hardwired work connections.  Your hardwired connection is your work phone that talks to your Laser, it does business tasks only. Its basic, no frills and requires some configuration to communicate properly, you essentially have to do the work of the Router.  You have to configure your hardwired work phone to meet your needs based on how your WI-FI personal phone is also set up. We want to keep the two phones separate. Your work phone will only make one outbound call….and that is to the Laser machine and we don't want to accidentally call the laser from the personal phone.

 

How Phone Numbers and IP's Can be compared:

      When you call a business, they usually have extensions. That is their internal network for the phone. They have their main number that you called, and then the extension you dial. The IP of your devices on your network can be considered the same basically.

 

Subnet Masking:

So how will we setup your Work phone to make an outbound call to only your Laser?

      We will need to know your WIFI network ID….kind of like your WI-FI phone number so that we can set up your work phone to not call your non work phone numbers and so that your WIFI phone won’t call your Laser Machine. Let's keep work and personal separate. For this example your Personal WIFI IP is 192.168.2.57 which means your Personal Phone Number (Network ID) is 192.168.2 and your Personal Extension (Host Id) is 57 assuming a 255.255.255.0 Subnet mask (Think of the Subnet Mask as dividing your Phone Calls into Local and Long Distance, you want to only make Local Calls)



In this map of Texas, Wood County is highlighted in magenta. That is where Thunder Laser USA is located. As you can see, Texas is broken down into a lot of counties. Let's assume each County is its own Network ID and Local Calling Region. Each county is assigned a unique Network ID and in order for one county to call another, it would be out of Network and Long Distance. The Lines on the Map at the Subnet Mask at work. The Subnet mask divides the entire available Network Space into separate networks, State into counties.






      Subnet mask at work. Once converted to Binary from standard Decimal notation, you will see how the 1's and 0's lay out. The Network ID is what passes through the Subnet where a 1 is, the Host ID is what is left over. In this case, the 192.168.1 passes as the Network ID and the .100 remains as the Host ID. Host ID should be unique for each device on the network.

      The Subnet mask basically splits ups the IP into two parts, the host name and the Network number. Network Number is like a Phone Number, Host Name is like an extension. The normal Subnet mask you will use is 255.255.255.0 which basically makes 192.168.1 the Network (Phone Number) and .101 the Host Name (extension). So your personal IP (Phone Number) is 192.168.2 with an extension of 57. Since the WIFI IP Network of 192.168.2 is different than the Work IP Network of 192.168.1…the two networks will not talk to each other which is actually what we want.

Info
Note that the two networks could actually talk to each other with advanced routing techniques, we liken these techniques to Long Distance Calling as they come with extra fees (setup work and advanced routing techniques)

Make the Connection:


      Let’s say your Work IP (Phone number) is 192.168.1.101. We can break that down to say your phone number is 192.168.1 and your extension is 101. Meaning if I call the 192.168.1 phone number I can reach any of the extensions on that network from extension 1 to .254. Now that assumption is based on the area we are calling in (Your workplace)…because we do not want to make any long distance calls and incur charges and in this case you usually have to “Dial 9” to do outside calls which would relate to some fancy routing of the Network.





Conclusion:

               Whew…it’s a bit complicated right? So our network (phone number) is 192.168.1 and our Computer host name (extension) is 101. And in order to talk to someone that is in network and not long distance, I need them to have the same 192.168.1 network (Phone Number) and a different Host name (extension) than me…..so lets put them at 100. Now were talking! And if anyone else wants to join, say a second laser….we can assign them their own Extension as well and then create the IP with it of 192.168.1.xxx. We want to make sure everyone on the network has a different extension. If two people on the same network have the same extension, bad things happen.




 Example Network:


 So the networks could look something like this, notice how the same laptop exists in both networks. It does this because it has two connection methods, WIFI and Hardwired. It gets to work and play.


But what if I want everything on my WIFI?


Now it is possible to have an All In One network where you computers and laser as well as your other devices on the network are all on the same Network ID with different Host ID's. For this type network, you need to set static IP's to any device that should always be reachable by the same Host ID. Printers, Lasers, Servers, your Router should all have Static IP's. Your computers, phones, stream boxes etc can have dynamic IP's that change every time they connect to the network. This is not necessarily the scope of this article though.



Scenario 2: Ethernet IP compared to a neighborhood


More to come in this section but.......we want to relate how your WIFI and a Lan Cable connection have to be treated in a way that correlates to a Neighborhood with streets/gates and other features.  Your WIFI is your internet connection...to the outside world..your Lan Cable connection is your connection to the laser machine.

Wifi would be Neighborhood 1
Lan Cable would be Neighborhood 2

Your computer is the Main street that the neighborhood entrances are on. The computer hosts both neighborhoods. The entrance roads are called "WIFI" for one neighborhood and "Lan Cable" for other.

Inside each neighborhood you can have up to 255 houses, each house is numbered and no two house have the same number.
But........houses in a different neighborhood can also be numbered....and with the same numbers as the house in the different neighborhood. Houses in one neighborhood do not talk to the houses in the other neighborhood.

Now...you cannot say "I live in house 200" to someone...as they will not know if you are in the WIFI or the Lan Cable neighborhood.

So in order to keep them separate......each house will have a bit of extra data attached to their address based on which neighborhood they are in. So lets say for WIFI....you attach 192.168.1 to the house number and for the Lan Cable neighborhood you attached 192.168.2 to the house number. So that house 200 in the WIFI neighborhood is really 192.168.1.200 and house 200 in the Lan Cable neighborhood is 192.168.2.200. Slight difference in the number........but it makes a huge difference as to which house is being specified.

The computer (which is the main street) has access to both the 192.168.1 and 192.168.2 neighborhoods since well..it is the street that gets you there. The computer accomplishes that task since it has both the Wifi and the Lan Cable connections.

Now....who decided to control the street and neighborhood access and house numbering? That would be the city planner.........which we will call Subnet Mask. Subnet mask splits up the IP ranges into subnet........which are the neighborhoods just like a city planner would. The Subnet Mask controls the numbering scheme and can be changed if needed...but for the most part 255.255.255.0 is the standard here.
 

An address comprised of 4 Octects (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where each xxx is an octet) that is used to determine the Network ID and the Host ID. Each network device needs a unique IP address and the user should know the subnet mask so that they can determine what the Network ID is and the Host ID

Network ID:

Think of this as the main phone number of a place you call that has extensions. The main number gets you to the building but doesn't get you to the phone of the person you are trying to reach.

Host ID:

This is the extension of the person you are trying to call. It is useless without knowing the Network ID. It should be unique in the network, otherwise you will have a duplication issue which will cause communication problems.

Subnet Mask:

In basic terms, the Subnet mask splits the IP address up into 2 parts. A typical mask is 255.255.255.0 which makes the first 3 Octets of the IP the Network Id and the Last octet the Host ID. If the Subnet mask is changed to 255.255.0.0 then it is evenly split into groups of two octets. The amount of devices (extensions) in a network is controlled by the Subnet mask. A typical network with a Subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 allows for 1-254 for the Host ID.

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