1. IPv4 Address A host needs an IPv4 to participate on the internet and almost all LANs today. The IPv4 address is a logical network address that identifies a particular host. It must be properly configured and unique within the LAN, for local communication. It must also be properly configured and unique in the world, for remote communication. This is how a host is able to communicate with other devices on the internet. "An IPv4 address is assigned to the network interface connection with other devices no the internet." This connection is usually a network interface card(NIC)installed in the device.
  2. Octets and Dotted-Decimal Notation IPv4 addresses are 32 bits in length. Here is an IPv4 address in binary: 11010001101001011100100000000001 Notice how difficult this address is to read. Imagine having to configure devices with a series of 32 bits are grouped into four 8-bit bytes called octets like this: 11010001.10100101.11001000.0000001 The above binary IPv4 becomes this dotted-decimal representation: 209.165.200.1
  3. Network and hosts IPv4 is a 32-bit logical addressing system used to identify devices on a network. Each IPv4 address is divided into two parts: the network portion and the host portion. The network part identifies which network the device belongs to, while the host part identifies the specific device within that network. The subnet mask is used to identify the network on which the host is connected. For example, in the IP address 192.168.5.11 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0, the first three octets (192.168.5) represent the network, and the last octet (11) represents the host. Devices with the same network portion can communicate directly, while communication between different networks requires a router.