IP Address Posting Guidelines

homecomputeraid · May 14, 2005

It seems prudent to try and explain what's safe and unsafe to publish in an open forum such as this one regarding your IP address.

[edit]

Simple Explanation:

If your IP Address falls between the first and last of any of the following:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255

172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255

You're ok to post it. The bottom value for each Octet (the numbers separated by periods) is 0. The highest value for an Octet is 255. So, if your home computer's IP is 192.168.1.101, for example, that falls between 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.255.255, so it's ok to post.

If you want a more detailed explanation, please read on, and you can also check out the Networking Fundamentals tutorials in this forum.

More complicated explanation

It greatly assists us in troubleshooting if we can see your IP scheme when you're trying to fix a TCP/IP related problem. There are, however, times when you should not publish your IP Addresses in the forum. You could Private Message (PM) them to one of the site moderators who you see is active in this forum if they fall into the risky category as outlined below:

Public vs. private IP schemes:

Public - A valid, routable Internet Address. These are the addresses assigned to actual organizations and servers throughout the Internet. If you have a valid Internet address because you're part of an organization that 'owns' some IP addresses, or you're using a PC attached directly to a cable modem or DSL modem with no router in between, I recommend that you do not publish your IP address(es) here, or in any other forum where they can be publicly viewed.

Private - A network reserved for 'internal' use which should not be routed openly on the Internet. Request for Comment (RFC) 1918 reserves the following networks for private use:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)

172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

If you have a home router, and the network used on the 'inside' of the router is 192.168.1.0 - 192.168.1.255, for example, you're using a private network, and it's relatively safe to post any IP information asked of you.

If you're still uncomfortable posting the results of an 'ipconfig' or an ipconfig /all openly in the forum, or if you don't understand what the heck I'm talking about here, please just tell whoever asked you for the information you prefer to send a PM containing the requested information instead of posting it.

If you know you have an IP in the private range, and you're comfortable with posting that information in this forum, please do not post your router's 'outside' or public IP. Feel free to post information regarding your internal network, but PM any information regarding the router's IP. It probably won't be needed to assist you in troubleshooting, so it probably won't be asked for anyway.

Happy, safe computing! :)

CurlyWhirly · May 14, 2005

I have asked the once to have my IP address edited out by Admin as it was unintentionally posted.

Does your above post imply that a private dynamic IP address like mine is safe to post on a public forum such as this?

If so I won't worry in future :rolleyes:

djohn · May 14, 2005

The IP address you asked to be removed Curly is your personal IP and should be on view only to admin and moderators. :)

CurlyWhirly · May 14, 2005

Djohn,

Thanks for that confirmation that I did the right thing in asking to have my IP address removed, sometimes I am a bit too security conscious for my own good! :)

homecomputeraid · May 15, 2005

It's always better to err on the side of caution if you have any question about whether or not to post your IP. :)

andsome · May 15, 2005

For those of us who do not understand this lot, could you please give a glossary of the terms used? What is an IP address as distinct from an e-mail address? What is a routable address etc. Pardon the ignorance, I for one have never understood all these terms.

What do all these numbers mean?

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)

172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

homecomputeraid · May 15, 2005

Andsome,

Thanks for the questions.

An e-mail address is a server your e-mail traverses, and your mailbox on it. For example, [email protected].

An IP Address is the TCP/IP address of your computer. It is used to tell a computer on the network or on the Internet how to get information you're looking for back to your PC. Let's take your mail server for example:

You open Mozilla Thunderbird, (or Outlook Express) to check your e-mail. Your computer first 'resolves' the name of your e-mail server so it knows it's IP Address. That's called a DNS Query. The transaction looks like this:

Andsome'sPC ---> DNS Server    Message:
192.168.1.51  ---> 64.80.100.52  What is the IP Address of yourisp.com?

DNS Server    --->  Andsome'sPC Reply:
64.80.100.52  --->  192.168.1.51  yourisp.com's IP Address is 124.53.9.80

Andsome'sPC  --->  yourisp.com's mail server  Message:
192.168.1.51   --->  124.53.9.80                      Please give me my mail

yourisp.com    --->  Andsome'sPC  Message:
124.53.9.80    --->  192.168.1.51   Here is your daily flood of SPAM!

All communication between computers uses IP Addresses, not host names. Host names are for humans, so they won't have to memorize IP Addresses. Computers have to find the IP Addresses before communication can occur.

Notice that I show you here having an IP Address that's in the same range of IP's my computer's in? The range being 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255? That's an 'internal', non-routable (on the Internet) IP Address. That means you have a router doing Network Address Translation, or NAT. NAT takes your 192.168.1.51 address and does a little magic to make it look like it's actually coming from your Router's outside valid Internet address. So, the mail server doesn't actually 'see' the address of Andsome'sPC, it sees the request to be coming from your Router. Once the message gets to the Router, it keeps track of the actual address of Andsome'sPC and gets the message there.

To find out what your IP Address is, go to Start, Run, and type in cmd for NT/2000/XP, or command for 95/98/ME, and in the command window that opens, type ipconfig. That will print out your IP Address like this:

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : pcc.com
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.31.21
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.31.1

See how my IP Address is 192.168.31.21? That falls into the following range:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)

172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix) **

So, by these guidelines, it's ok to post.

The (10/8 prefix) indicates the subnet mask that can be used. An 8 bit mask for the network designation means a mask of 255.0.0.0, and a 16 bit mask means 255.255.0.0. The different sections of the IP Address are called octets (the parts separated by a period). There are 4 octets in an IP Address. The subnet mask for the last 3 octets for a 10.x.x.x network, and the last two octets of a 172.16.x.x to 172.31.x.x, or a 192.168.x.x network, can be anything between 0 and 255, but for home users, I recommend sticking with a 'class c' mask of 255.255.255.0.

I hope all this is a help and not a hinderance! :)

andsome · May 15, 2005

Many thanks, very interesting, but still very confusing. I did what you suggested and got a similar result to what you stated , but it still confuses me somewhat.

homecomputeraid · May 15, 2005

Andsome,

I think you read the Networking Fundamentals posts a while ago. Do they help at all, or is this post confusing even after re-checking the Networking Fundamentals tutorials?

If you don't understand, I'm sure there are many who won't, so I'll have to do some work on this.

andsome · May 15, 2005

I have heard the terms used before, but they are Chinese to me. I am pretty fair at using the computer, and have a small circle of friends who look to me for help from time to time, which I am able to do because of what I have learned from this forum. However, this lot is not something that I have fully grasped. Don't however worry on my behalf.

homecomputeraid · May 16, 2005

I'll reflect on this a bit andsome. If I can make it more understandable without repeating the networking fundamentals posts, I will. I'm sure you're not the only one scratching your head over this andsome! Thanks for the feedback.

andsome · May 16, 2005

Very kind of you, but as I said don't worry about it. Lots of things about computers are a mystery to lots of people.

micken · May 16, 2005

This thread is a good idea. I asked for an IP address to be removed from a Hijack This log when I posted a while ago. Thanks for the heads-up Ted.

djohn · May 16, 2005

Its no problem andsome. homecomputeraid has done an excellent job with his tutorials but it is a difficult area for the average user to understand, including myself in this. :(

Anything that the forum can do to help members grasp the above is a good idea, I'm sure homecomputeraid will do his best to make it as easy as possible for us all to follow. :)

Any members who are having a problem with this article, or any other guide, please let us know in this thread if its networking related, or start a new topic in the correct zone if not, and the moderators will do their best to explain in as much or little detail as you require.

Nothing in this forum is for just a select few, our aim is that all members understand as much as they wish to know on any subject computer related.

homecomputeraid · May 16, 2005

All,

Thanks for your input. I may rewrite the article tonight, and do away with terms like Internet routable IP addresses, which are accurate, but don't help the average user much. I'll try to make it as cut and dried as possible, and possibly point to this article if the user wants to know more. That means I can make this article more technical too.

Thanks to all who read, tried to understand, and provided feedback! :flowers:

CurlyWhirly · May 16, 2005

Homecomputeraid has done an excellent job with his tutorials but it is a difficult area for the average user to understand, including myself in this. :(

You and me both :blink:

I must admit that his explanation lost me as well but I have learned something as quoted directly below:

The different sections of the IP Address are called octets (the parts separated by a period). There are 4 octets in an IP Address.

So at least I know what an octet is, as before I read this thread, I would have thought that an octet was only something to do with music!

andsome · May 16, 2005

Looking forward to my further edification.

homecomputeraid · May 17, 2005

Please see my edit. I'm not sure it helps much, but it's a pretty cut and dried way to let people know right off the bat whether it's ok to post (that's my goal anyway!) :) Please continue the great feedback.

andsome · May 17, 2005

I have saved this thread in 'My Favourites'. Many thanks. It is still difficult for the uninitiated, but I will have another read later and try to get my head round it.

scuzzman · May 18, 2005

I've removed our music discussion and placed it here to keep this thread relevant to the discussion at hand :)

Invisible§niper · February 23, 2006

Very kind of you, but as I said don't worry about it. Lots of things about computers are a mystery to lots of people.

The reason behind a computer/server not knowing the IP address when you type for example http://www.ebay.com in your web browser's address bar. Is because your computer can not read/write english like us humans, it only understand numbers... and it understands numbers extremely well!!

What happens with Domain Name Server(DNS) is that when you type http://www.ebay.com in your webbrowser your computer doesn't know the address(Or telephone/contact number, so to speak) of the computer that runs the website http://ebay.com. So what it does is asks a computer that does know the contact number(IP address), and this computer is called a Domain Name Server(DNS). The DNS then will give your computer the contact number of http://www.ebay.com. DNS is purely for human luxury, imagine trying to remember 66.135.208.90 instead of http://www.ebay.com and 207.171.166.102 for http://www.amazon.com. You can actually type those address into your webbrowser's address bar and they will go to ebay/amazon. And in this case your computer doesn't have to ask a DNS because it already has the address!!

So to sumerise... DNS is purely for human luxuray so you dont have to remember a long string of numbers just to go to something like http://www.ebay.com. And computers only understand numbers not english like http://www.ebay.com or http://www.microsoft.com. A DNS's main and only job is to turn domain names into IP addresses!! :):)

andsome · February 24, 2006

I think I'll take an aspirin. :D :D

CurlyWhirly · February 24, 2006

A DNS's main and only job is to turn domain names into IP addresses.

Very interesting description of what a DNS does.

Just out of curiosity, would I be right in thinking that there are several DNS servers as surely if there was only the one then it wouldn't be able to cope with all the internet traffic worldwide?

Invisible§niper · February 25, 2006

A DNS's main and only job is to turn domain names into IP addresses.
Very interesting description of what a DNS does.
Just out of curiosity, would I be right in thinking that there are several DNS servers as surely if there was only the one then it wouldn't be able to cope with all the internet traffic worldwide?

Some large companies will set up DNS servers for their own domain, for example if windowsforum.org had its own DNS server and you tped http://www.windowsforum.org into your webbrowser's address bar then you would get windowsforum DNS server supplying you the IP address of windowsforum.org.

But if you typed in say, "www.amazon.com" and your webbrowser asked windowsforum.com for the IP address, then windowsforum.com's DNS server wouldn't know it because it would only be responsible for the domain of windowsforum.com. So in turn windowsforum.com's DNS server will ask another server called "A Root Server". Root servers know the addresses of all of the top-level domain names. The top-level domain names are the domain names that nearly the entire Internet have(i.e .com, .net, .org, .mil, .biz, .gov, .edu). As you know most websites you visit have one of these top-level domains, like "amazon.com".

A root DNS server organizes it's domain names into a form like windows organizes its folders.

ROOT SERVER ADDRESS 192.5..5.241

com edu biz

amzon.com libraryeducat.edu buytoday.biz

business.com maths.edu cheapdeals.biz

busytoday.com

So basically in the obove table your browser will ask a ROOT DNS server, there is 13 of them world wide. Then after it's asked the DNS server will check its table and will say, "ok you need something in the .com top-level domain". Then it will look down the alpabetically stored domain names within the .com section and will see amazon.com, which happens to be the first in its list of .com domains. Then it will grab that IP address and send it to your browser so you can view www.amazon.com!

So to sumerise, A top-level domain name is eaither of the following (.com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .biz, and many more) Root DNS will use the top-level domain names to track down the address within their database when other DNS servers can not find the needed address. Some companies and organisations will set up their own DNS servers that only deal with their own domain(e.g www.windowsforum.org will only deal with www.windowsforum.org).

CurlyWhirly · February 25, 2006

Thanks Invisible§niper, that's very interesting!

I now know that there are 13 DNS root servers worldwide but I had no idea that some companies and organisations have their own domain servers which only work with their own websites like in your Windows Forum example above.

Also I tried typing in the actual IP address of Amazon.com and it worked!

It makes sense as like you said I find it much easier to remember http://www.amazon.com rather than http://207.171.166.102

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