Content









3.1
Configuring
a Network Interface Card



3.1.2
Setting
the IP address





In a TCP/IP-based LAN, PCs use Internet
Protocol (IP) addresses to identify and locate each other. An IP address is a 32-bit binary number. This binary number is
divided into 4 groups of 8 bits known as octets, each of which is
represented by a decimal number in the range of 0 to 255. The octets
are separated by decimal points. An example of an IP address is
190.100.5.54. This type of address is described as a dotted decimal
representation. Each device on the network that has an IP address is
known as a host or node.
A secondary dotted decimal number, known as the subnet mask, always
accompanies an IP address. A subnet mask is a tool used by a system
administrator to segment the network address that has been assigned to
the network the technique of subnetting allows the entire network to
be represented to the Internet by one address. An example of a subnet
mask is 255.255.0.0. The subnet mask is also used to determine whether
a particular host IP address is local (on the same network segment) or
remote (on another segment).
There are several options for assigning IP addresses for hosts on a
LAN:

Static
Assigned by the network administrator manually

Dynamic
Assigned by a Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) server (DHCP servers are discussed in the next
section.)
Automatic
Private IP addressing

If there are more than a few computers, manually configuring TCP/IP
addresses for every host on the network can be a time consuming
process. This also requires that the network administrator assigning
the addresses understands IP addressing and knows how to choose a
valid address for the particular network. An IP address is unique for
each host. The IP address is stored in the Network Settings of the
Operating System Software. It is commonly referred to as the logical
address. TCP/IP addressing will be taught later in this
course.

In the Windows operating system, the IP address is manually entered
into the TCP/IP properties dialog box. Figure
shows the TCP/IP
configuration box, which is used to set the address settings, or
configurations that are entered, which include the following:

An IP address
A subnet mask
Default gateway address
Optional values including a Domain Name System (DNS) server
address and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)

The default gateway address and the DNS are discussed in a later
section.