Every computer on a network has to have an I.P. address. 2ways that a computer can be assigned an I.P. address. One is static and another one is dynamic. A static IP is where a user assigns an I.P. address manually. If you are assigning I.P. address manually you need to add subnet mask and default gateway and preferred dns server, for suppose if you are dealing with large network there will be lot of computers and every computer need to have different I.P. address. If you give computer same ip address to many computers it leads to I.P CONFLICT and there will be no internet for that computers.


  • A dynamic IP is where a computer gets an I.P. address from a DHCP server. 
  • A DHCP server automatically assigns a computer an: I.P. address, subnet mask, default gateway, dns server.
  • A DHCP server assigns IP addresses  to computers on a network from its scope. And scope is a range of IP addresses that a DHCP server can hand out.
  • The DHCP server assigns the IP address as a lease, a lease is the amount of time an IP address is assigned to a computer. The lease to help make sure the DHCP server does not run out of IP addresses in its scope.