A crash course in TCP/IP

At first glance, TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) may seem baffling. Many other protocols, such
as NetBEUI and IPX/SPX, require no configuration. TCP/IP is different. Due to the seemingly endless number of options
that you can configure within TCP/IP, many people become intimidated at first. In reality, however, TCP/IP isn’t very
difficult, but you have to gain some understanding of what you’re configuring. So, I’m going to give you a crash course in
TCP/IP. Although I won’t be able to explore every feature in detail, I’ll cover the important points.

The IP address

The most basic element of TCP/IP is the IP address. The IP address is a number that’s unique to each computer. If you
know a computer’s IP address, you can communicate with that computer from anywhere in the world. Since TCP/IP is the
protocol that the Internet uses and since Internet servers are located all over the world, TCP/IP must be routable. Thus,
when you try to access an IP address, your computer must be able to tell whether or not that IP address is located on
your local network. If the desired address is located on your local network, you won’t have a problem reaching it. If it isn’t
on your local network, TCP/IP must know which network the IP address is located on in order to reach the address.
The network number represents the network that contains a given IP address. If you look through the various tabs of the
TCP/IP properties sheet, you’ll see that there’s no field that allows you to specify the network number. Instead, the
network number is part of the IP address.
An IP address is composed of a network number and a computer number. Your computer can distinguish those two
numbers because of something called the subnet mask. The subnet mask is located in a field directly below the IP
address on the TCP/IP properties sheet. A simple subnet mask would be something like 255.255.0.0. The numbers that
make up the subnet mask indicate which portion of the IP address is the network number and which portion is the
computer number. The four numbers of the subnet mask correspond directly to the four numbers in the IP address. For
example, if you had a computer with an IP address of 147.100.100.25 and a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0, the first two
numbers in the subnet mask (both are 255) indicate that the first two numbers of the IP address are the network number.
The second two numbers (both are 0) indicate that the second two numbers of the IP address are the computer number.
Therefore, in the IP address 147.100.100.25, the 147.100 portion denotes which network the computer is located on, and
the 100.25 portion represents a particular computer on that network. Of course, subnet masks become much more
complex than this example. For instance, you can subdivide an individual network.

The default gateway

Now that you know how TCP/IP determines whether a destination address is located on a local network or on a foreign
network, you may wonder how it attaches to a foreign network, especially if that network is halfway around the world.
Well, it completes this job by using routing tables. Routing tables, which are stored in your routers, tell the router where to
connect in certain situations.
You should note that one of the TCP/IP configuration options is for a default gateway. The default gateway is the address
where a TCP/IP packet is sent if TCP/IP can’t locate the destination IP address on the local network. Usually, the default
gateway points to the router that controls your building’s link to the outside world (often through an Internet connection).
Since this router has a table of other routers, it knows the address and location of these routers. The destination IP
address helps the router determine to which router to pass the packet. Typically, a TCP/IP packet is passed through
several routers before it arrives on the destination network and, finally, on the destination PC.

DHCP

If all of this information is making your head spin, there’s one TCP/IP feature that will make your life easier: Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP). DHCP allows you to set one or more servers on your network to act as a DHCP server.
When a client computer that’s set to use the DHCP option comes online, the DHCP server automatically configures
TCP/IP on this computer. Of course, you still have to configure the DHCP server, but using DHCP saves you from all of
the effort of configuring each client manually. It also keeps you from accidentally using a particular IP address more than
once. DHCP is also useful if you have a limited number of IP addresses to work with; only the computers that are turned
on at a given moment will use IP addresses.

WINS

On Windows-based networks, each computer has a name. The WINS option can be configured to contain the IP address
of a Windows NT Server that’s running a WINS service. The WINS service resolves computer names (NetBIOS names) to
IP addresses. Thus, if you try to access a computer by its name, your computer will go directly to the WINS database and
search for the name and IP address. It won’t have to query every computer on the network to determine the right IP
address. As you can imagine, using WINS really cuts down on network traffic.

DNS
DNS functions similarly to WINS, except that it manages domain names rather than computer names. A domain name is
the type of name that you use on the Internet. For example, Microsoft.com is a domain name. When you point your
browser to www.microsoft.com, your computer will query a DNS server for the IP address that corresponds to the domain
name. If the DNS server doesn’t know the address, it asks another DNS server. This process continues until a DNS
server somewhere along the line knows the address. Then, that server informs your computer—and all of the other DNS
servers that are involved—of the domain name’s IP address.