Nearly every modern network uses the internet protocol suite, also known as TCP/IP, to facilitate connections between computers or other devices. TCP/IP is a set of protocols that manage the transmission of raw data over the network. The most common way to work with TCP/IP directly in code is with a socket API.
A socket is a file-like object that represents a single point of network connectivity for the system. Every socket has a host address, network port, and transmission protocol.
The host address, also known as an IP address, is a set of numbers used to identify a single network host on a network. Although backbone systems rely on the IPv6 protocol, most personal computers still use the older IPv4 address, which consists of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by a dot. You can find the address of your system using GUI tools, or by typing...