Build Your Skills: A crash course in TCP/IP

Takeaway: An overview for those wanting to know more about TCP/IP

At first glance, TCP/IP 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 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.

Conclusion
TCP/IP is more intimidating than other protocols because there are so many different options
to configure. I’ve provided you with a brief explanation of how TCP/IP works. Now, you
should have a better understanding of those options.

Brien M. Posey is an MCSE who works as a freelance technical writer and as a network
engineer for the Department of Defense. If you’d like to contact Brien, send him an e-mail.
(Because of the large volume of e-mail he receives, it's impossible for him to respond to
every message. However, he does read them all.)
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