IP addresses are unique numerical labels that are assigned to devices connected to a computer network. They are used to identify and locate devices on the network and to allow them to communicate with each other.

An IP address consists of two main components - a network identifier and a host identifier. The network identifier identifies the network that a device is connected to, while the host identifier identifies the specific device on that network.

There are two main versions of IP addresses - IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 addresses are 32-bit numbers, and they are written in dotted-decimal notation (e.g. 192.168.0.1). IPv6 addresses are 128-bit numbers, and they are written in hexadecimal notation (e.g. 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334).

Each device on a network must have a unique IP address to communicate with other devices on the network. Your router uses a system called the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to automatically assign IP addresses to devices as they connect to the network.

What is the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?

IPv4 and IPv6 are two versions of the Internet Protocol (IP). The main difference between the two is the number of available IP addresses.

IPv4, which was the first version of the IP protocol, uses 32-bit addresses and can support a maximum of about 4.3 billion unique addresses. This may seem like a large number, but as more and more devices have connected to the internet in recent years, the pool of available IPv4 addresses has been exhausted.

To address this problem, a new version of the IP protocol was developed - IPv6. IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses, which allows for a much larger number of unique IP addresses - approximately 340 undecillion (or 340 followed by 36 zeros). This is more than enough to accommodate the growing number of devices connecting to the internet.

In addition to the larger number of available addresses, IPv6 also offers some other benefits over IPv4. For example, IPv6 addresses are easier to read and write, as they are written in hexadecimal notation. IPv6 also includes support for new technologies such as IPv6-based VPNs and Quality of Service (QoS), which can improve network performance.