Network Software

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Lesson Goals

In this lesson we will cover:

• Addressing on a network
• IP Addresses
• Websites and IP addresses
• Networking Tools

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Addressing on a Network

• Consider sending a letter or dialing a phone. Every person needs a UNIQUE identifier. e.g. home address and phone number
• In order to send data to another device, we need some way of uniquely addressing it.
• Every piece of hardware capable of connecting to a network has a unique identifier called the MAC (Media Access Control) address.
• MAC addresses can be found directly on your router:
• Or on your Ethernet card through the command prompt by typing ipconfig /all.

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IP ADDRESSES

• MAC addresses are only used for local networking – those are nearby networks used for pooling computer resources.
• To access a wider network (e.g. the Internet), devices require an IP address.
• To obtain an IP address, computers typically negotiate with a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server which leases (lends) one to the device.
• LEASES ARE TEMPORARY! Sometimes, when your device cannot connect to the network, it needs to renew the lease on its IP.
• IP addresses are in the range:
• 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255
• Under this addressing system, there are about 4 billion unique addresses. But they’re being used up rapidly!
• Some IP addresses have special meaning. For instance, 127.0.0.1 loops you back to your own machine.

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Websites and IP addresses

• Every website is associated with an IP address. Since IP addresses might change, we address webpages using names e.g. www.google.ca
• A DNS (Domain Name Server) provides the translation from website name to IP addresses.
• This allows people to use website names instead of IP addresses!

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Networking Tools

Windows provides us with some handy tools for networking. These are accessed through the command prompt.

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