What is a private IP address)

What is a private IP address?

When you send a letter from your house to a friend, you have to know
The address to send it to so that the postman knows which street and
Which house to take it to. computer networks such as the Internet are no
Different release T instead of sending your web traffic to "1145 main
Street "; your computer's location is known as an IP address.

An IP address is your computer's equivalent of your postal address
And just like the mail service, each computer has to have its own
Address so that it will only receive the information that is meant
It and not anything that is meant for someone else.

While we are used to writing out streets and house numbers on
Envelopes, inside your computer IP addresses are usually represented in
What is known as dotted-decimal format such as 124.62.112.7 as this is
The system that is understood by computers. As you can see, the address
Is split into 4 sections known as "octets" and each of the four octets
Can be numbered from 0-255, providing a total of 4,294,967,296
Potentially unique IP addresses.

Now, while 4.2 billion might seem like a lot, for policyears large
Amounts of these have been allocated and used by large network such
Backbone Providers, ISPs and large universities that made up the early
Internet while other groups still have been reserved for special
Purposes and are not usable, so in practice the real amount is far less
Than 4.2 billion. The problem that we face today is that with your homes
Owning more than one computer and with cell phones, PDAs and even
Fridges being enabled for Internet access these days, IP addresses are
Running out.

When I mentioned above that some blocks of addresses had been
Reserved for special purposes, one of these purposes was for private
Networking and it is these private addresses that help to relieve
Pressure on the remaining address space and make possible handle of
Cable and DSL routers that people have at home today to share their
Internet connection amongst running PCs.

Private IP address ranges

The ranges and the amount of usable IP's are as follows:

10.0.0.0-10.20.255.255
Addresses: 16,777,216

172.16.0.0-172.31.255.255
Addresses: 1,048,576

192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255
Addresses: 65,536

So, what are these addresses and how do they work?

For example, if I had 6 computers that I wanted to network, I might
Number them from 172.16.0.1 up to 172.16.0.6 and this wowould still leave
Over a million more addresses that I cocould use if I were to buy some
More computers or if I was networking a large office and needed lots and
Lots of addresses.

These blocks of addresses can be used by anyone, anywhere-even if
Your neighbor is using the exact same addresses this won't cause
Problem. This is possible because these addresses are known
"Non-routable addresses" and the devices on the Internet that move data
From one place to another are specially programmed to recognize these
Addresses. These devices (known as routers) will recognize that these
Are private addresses belonging to your network and will never forward
Your traffic onto the internet so for your connection to work; you will
Always require at least one real address from the general pool so that
Your home router can perform what is known as "Network Address Translation ".

Nat is a process where your router changes your private IP Address
Into a public one so that it can send your traffic over the Internet,
Keeping track of the changes in the process. When the information comes
Back to your router, it reverses the change back from a real IP Address
Into a private one and forwards the traffic back to your computer.

Private addresses and Nat is what makes your home router work and
Using them, anyone is able to connect as your computer's as they wish
The Internet without having to worry about running out of addresses and
This gives everyone extends more years until all the available addresses
Are used up.