What is an IP address? An IP address is essentially a number. It’s a set of four sets of numbers that form an IP address which is used by a computer to identify itself on the network. Your computer at home, your computer at work works in the same way. Your computer has its own name and an IP address assigned to it, which is what helps it get the computer to communicate on the network and to communicate with other computers and other devices on a network.
Dynamic IP addresses are IP addresses that are assigned automatically but they will commonly change. It’s not an IP address that you set and will stay like that forever. A static IP is an IP address that you set on your computer and it never changes.
There is going to be some sort of a device out on your network that is assigning IP addresses out to devices on a network. This is what’s called DHCP. This could be a DHCP server, it could be perhaps a router or a modem that you’ve got set up at home that is set up to assign IP addresses out to devices to computers out on a network. But this DHCP server now whether that be your home router it could be a DHCP server in a corporate environment in a workplace and that is set up with a range of IP addresses that are being allocated to computers out on a network.
An IP address could be in a range of 192.168.0.1 through to 192.168.0.250. So all those IPs have been defined, they’re ready to assign dynamically to computers out on a network. Essentially, a computer connects into your network, and the computer goes out and says hey, I need an IP address. Without an IP address, that computer cannot actually function on the network, so it needs an IP address.
Generally, those IP addresses will change, so they may have what’s called lease times. So, in the DHCP service, you’re going to be assigning IP addresses, and you’re going to say maybe this IP address lasts for only eight hours. Then after eight hours, that computer that has now an IP address that IP will expire, and now it needs a new IP address. So, it will go back out to the network look for that DHCP service, and then a new IP address will be assigned to it.
A static IP is one that you go and set yourself. Even though it could be getting an IP address automatically dynamically from various places from a DHCP service of some sort, you can go into the network settings and manually say I want my IP address to be this and you go into these settings and you say okay I want my IP to be 192.168.0.33 that is my IP address and you set it statically. And because you manually set it that IP will never change.
In conclusion, dynamic IP addresses are assigned automatically, but they will commonly change. It’s not an IP address that you set and will stay like that forever. On the other hand, a static IP is an IP address that you set on your computer and it never changes. You can allocate a static IP on a mac and a windows pc.