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The five-layer TCP/IP model

5. Application layer

DHCP • DNS • FTP • Gopher • HTTP • IMAP4 • IRC • NNTP • XMPP • MIME • POP3 • SIP • SMTP • SNMP • SSH • TELNET • RPC • RTP • RTCP • TLS/SSL • SDP • SOAP • VPN • PPTP • L2TP • GTP • STUN • NTP •

4. Transport layer

TCP • UDP • DCCP • SCTP • RIP •

3. Internet layer

IP (IPv4 • IPv6) • IGMP • ICMP • RSVP • BGP • OSPF • ISIS • IPsec • ARP • RARP •

2. Data link layer

802.11 • ATM • DTM • Ethernet • FDDI • Frame Relay • GPRS • EVDO • HSPA • HDLC • PPP •

1. Physical layer

Ethernet physical layer • ISDN • Modems • PLC • SONET/SDH • G.709 • WiMAX •

An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that certain electronic devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)—in simpler terms, a computer address. Any participating network device—including routers, computers, time-servers, printers, Internet fax machines, and some telephones—can have their own unique address.

An IP address can also be thought of as the equivalent of a street address or a phone number (compare: VoIP (voice over (the) internet protocol)) for a computer or other network device on the Internet. Just as each street address and phone number uniquely identifies a building or telephone, an IP address can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on a network. An IP address differs from other contact information, however, because the linkage of a user's IP address to his/her name is not publicly available information.

IP addresses can appear to be shared by multiple client devices either because they are part of a shared hosting web server environment or because a network address translator (NAT) or proxy server acts as an intermediary agent on behalf of its customers, in which case the real originating IP addresses might be hidden from the server receiving a request. A common practice is to have a NAT hide a large number of IP addresses, in the private address space defined by RFC 1918, an address block that cannot be routed on the public Internet. Only the "outside" interface(s) of the NAT need to have Internet-routable addresses.

Most commonly, the NAT device maps TCP or UDP port numbers on the outside to individual private addresses on the inside. Just as there may be site-specific extensions on a telephone number, the port numbers are site-specific extensions to an IP address.

IP addresses are managed and created by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA generally allocates super-blocks to Regional Internet Registries, who in turn allocate smaller blocks to Internet service providers and enterprises.