An IP address identifies a location of a resource within a network
It operates at Layer 3 (Network) of the OSI model, enabling routing and traffic control across multi-node networks.
IPv4
- uses 32-bit addresses
- can create 4.3 billion addresses, so they must be reused and masked
IPv6
- 128-bit addresses
- eight groups of four hexadecimal digits
See also
- OSI Model describes network communication in 7 layers from physical bits to application data — IP addressing lives at Layer 3, the Network layer, responsible for structuring and routing across nodes