Networking I - Binary, IP Addresses, Subnets, LAN Configuration

Learning Goals

After this week, you will be able to

  • Understand and apply basic binary arithmetic
  • Understand IP addresses and their organisation into subnets
  • Create and configure Local Area Networks (LANs)
  • Use basic Linux commands for managing:
    • IP addresses (IPv4 and IPv6)
    • IP subnets and masks

Binary and IP Addresses

During Teknostart, you have already learned about IP addresses. Now you will learn even more about IP addressing and the fundamental aspects that enable the Internet.

To know more about networking, we will be using the book Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach, 8th edition. We will be using this book in the upcoming weeks and in the course TTM4200 in the Spring semester, so please try to get a copy as soon as possible.

Reading the first chapter is recommended but not mandatory. Each week will focus on specific sections that need to be read and understood. Details about the required readings will be available every week, in bold.

How do Computers Communicate?

Introduction to Binary

Binary code is fundamental in digital systems and computers. This video gives several examples of how binary code is used and even touches on ternary and quantum possibilities.

Binary Numbers

IP addresses, which we briefly looked at earlier, are represented by binary numbers. However, this can sometimes be tricky to visualize. The following videos will help you understand how to convert a number from binary do decimal and vice versa. This will be very useful when working with IP addresses and subnets.

Understanding IP Addresses

The following video gives a short overview on how IP addresses are used in our everyday lives whenever we use the Internet (the first 2min are sufficient).

This video also introduces IP addresses in a slower but more complete way.

More about IP Addresses

Focusing on IP addresses, and to prepare for the lecture's quiz, you need to read from section 1.1 to 1.2.1 of the book (from page 32 to page 41). If you already read the first chapter, you can check the additional material below.

Material from the book will also be included in the RAT, don't ignore it!

Optional Material: Routing, Subnets, and More

The material below won't be tested but will be very important in the near future.

Routing

The videos and readings above already provided some insights about routing. However, the following video provides more information and shows the importance of routing in today's Internet.

If you want to know some more about the Internet and network stacks, the following video is also very interesting.

Subnets

We will talk more about IP subnets in the classroom. However, if you want to learn more about it in advance, you can check this video with a pizza analogy for subnets!

This one is a bit too slow-paced but it motivates why we want subnets.

This second video on IP subnets is quite long, but gives plenty of examples for those of you feeling curious about the arithmetic part.

Delays and Packet Loss

Surely you've experienced "lag" and "loss of connection". You can read more about these phenomena in pages 62--66 and 69--70. Of course, if you've already read Chapter 1 you'll already know all about this!

Edit this page