Netgear WGU624 Guide D’Exploitation

B-2

Network, Routing, Firewall, and Basics

Routers vary in performance and scale, number of routing protocols supported, and types of 
physical WAN connection they support. The Double 108 Mbps Wireless Firewall Router 
WGU624 is a small office router that routes the IP protocol over a single-user broadband 
connection.

One of the protocols used by a router to build and maintain a picture of the network is the Routing 
Information Protocol (RIP). Using RIP, routers periodically update one another and check for 
changes to add to the routing table.

The WGU624 wireless router supports both the older RIP-1 and the newer RIP-2 protocols. 
Among other improvements, RIP-2 supports subnet and multicast protocols. RIP is not required 
for most home applications. 

Because TCP/IP networks are interconnected across the world, every machine on the Internet must 
have a unique address to make sure that transmitted data reaches the correct destination. Blocks of 
addresses are assigned to organizations by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). 
Individual users and small organizations may obtain their addresses either from the IANA or from 
an Internet service provider (ISP). You can contact IANA at 

.

The Internet Protocol (IP) uses a 32-bit address structure. The address is usually written in dot 
notation (also called dotted-decimal notation), in which each group of eight bits is written in 
decimal form, separated by decimal points.

For example, the following binary address: 

11000011  00100010  00001100  00000111 

is normally written as: 

195.34.12.7

The latter version is easier to remember and easier to enter into your computer.

In addition, the 32 bits of the address are subdivided into two parts. The first part of the address 
identifies the network, and the second part identifies the host node or station on the network. The 
dividing point may vary depending on the address range and the application.