How do all servers across the world ensure unique IP addresses?

Question

I could be totally wrong here, but I’ve always been under the impression that IP addresses are unique in that for every address, there is one and only one server/computer, and viceversa. How do you accomplish this given all the different manufacturers, countries’ internet protocols, etc.?

In: Technology

Answer 1

That’s an awesome question. The best start of an answer is a 1 to many relationship called Nerwork Address Translation. An IP address isn’t like a fingerprint. This allows many private IP addresses to be “represented” by a smaller number of public addresses.

I will let someone else speak to ipv4 and ipv6 and how all that plays in.