I’ve been diving into the public and private IP addresses, as I could understand public IP addresses are assigned by Internet Service Providers, but I couldn’t understand how and by whom are private IP addresses assigned. I couldn’t understand as well what’s the purpose of private IP addresses.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you for helping me out.
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Almost any router and managed switch is able to assign ip addresses to the devices that connect to it. These addresses are usually private.
In a simple office setup, for example, you have a router in order for the office to have internet. This router has a public ip handed to you from your isp and the whole office is visible to the outside world through this ip. I.e. no matter which employee connects to the outside world, the ip visible to the server is this one public ip. Each computer and other network connected device, also has an ip, hopefully a private one, which is issued by the router itself and is used to facilitate communication between the router and said device and maybe other devices connected to the network such as a printer or a nas.
If you imagine the internet as a big network, there are a bunch of smaller networks in there which are ‘black boxes’ and you have no idea what is going on inside of them. The small office in the example above, is one such small black box, where the outside world only knows about the one public ip, but no one knows if it is just one guy and a printer or a huge multi-floor enterprise with hundreds of devices and their respective private ips.
Tl:Dr you connect to any network, you (should) get an IP. If you are going through any type of router/switch, this ip usually is private and only known to other devices connected to said switch. The switch will have a public ip in order to speak to the outside world.
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