Internet Governance. Internet Architecture. IP Address. What is an IP address? Every computer on the Internet has a unique numerical address, called an Internet Protocol (IP) address, used to route packets to it across the Internet. Just as your postal address enables the postal system to send mail to your house from anywhere around the world, your computer's IP address gives the Internet routing protocols the unique information they need to route packets of information to your desktop from anywhere across the Internet. If a machine needs to contact another by a domain name, it first looks up the corresponding IP address with the domain name service. The IP address is the geographical descriptor of the virtual world, and the addresses of both source and destination systems are stored in the header of every packet that flows across the Internet.
You can find your IP address on a Windows computer by opening an MSDOS or Command window and typing one of "winipcfg" or "ipconfig". Format. Allocations. Lookup databases. Resources. Internet Routing. The Domain Name System. Email. World Wide Web. Internet Security Considerations. Some Internet Stats.