A few networking concepts

Since we have learned how a DHCP server operates, we will now work through an introduction to some important concepts related to networking that might be useful in understanding the operation of the network and also for debugging any errors we may encounter.

Though it might not look like it on first read, an IP address follows a predefined set of conventions and it is not handed out randomly. The IP address that is visible, for example 192.168.1.10, is actually composed of binary numbers. Each number separated by a decimal is actually a binary octet. So the preceding IP address actually looks like the following:

11000000 10101000 00000001 00001010

Now, an IP address is classified into multiple classes according to the address allocated to it by the DHCP server. They serve as a hierarchical system and also help to segment the IP address into classes such as private address and external address. They also help in distributing the IP address ranges to entities such as...