What is an IP address?

An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique numerical label assigned to each device connected to a network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. It serves two main purposes:

1. **Identification**: Identifies the device on the network.

2. **Location Addressing**: Provides the device's location within the network to enable routing of data.

There are two versions of IP addresses:

- **IPv4**: Consists of four sets of numbers separated by dots (e.g., 192.168.1.1), with a total of about 4.3 billion possible addresses.

- **IPv6**: Uses eight groups of hexadecimal digits separated by colons (e.g., 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334), providing a much larger address space to accommodate more devices.