#Digital Literacy-What is an IP address?

In a DNS, MX-Entry stands for a Mail Exchange entry. A block of information in the MX section of the DNS Records allows the brands to communicate on behalf of their domain name seamlessly.

For instance, you can contact us at contact@nexgi.com, which is only possible due to the MX Entries configured in our MX Records.

In simple terms, it allows you to send all the emails with your domain name at the end and allows your customers to send you an email to an email with the domain.

Why do you need it?

Communication is an essential aspect of building a brand. And to flawlessly communicate with the consumers, brands have been using brand-specific emails with the address pointing towards their domain. 

Establishes a trust factor amongst the consumers that they are directly communicating with the brand. And this experience is only possible due to the MX-Entries configured by the brands.  

Think of it this way, if you are building an eCommerce store, would you want your consumers to email you at myecommercestore@gmail.com or contact@myecommercestore.com.

How does an MX-Entry work?

An MX-Entry acts as a bridge between the domain mail and the mail server. All the emails sent to recipient@domainname.com are routed to the mail server.

To understand how an MX Entry works, you’ll need to understand its format.

The example.com in the host section needs to be configured with information about the root domain. It is to specify the root domain from which what should forward all the emails.

The value here refers to an MX-server’s address. It is configured to point to the preferred MX-server.

A priority number is used when the MX-Records have more than one server configured. It prioritizes the server based on the number.

The TTL here talks about the Time to Live. The Time to Live settings refers to the time limit for the information to live on a device or a remote server. Once the time frame exceeds the time limit, the data is purged and refreshed with new information. 

How to configure an MX-Entry?

Do you remember the A-Record? If not, we’d recommend you check out our content piece/podcast about an A-Record. 

Here, you’ll need to specify the I.P. address of your mail server in the A-Record with the hostname mail. An I.P. address is a numerical form of a website or a computer’s location over the Internet. The reason why it’s called an I.P. address is that it follows a particular set of internet protocols or rules. That means the “I.P.” in an I.P. address stands for internet protocol.

Think of it this way; you are looking to purchase a house at a location x. Whilst registering the property, location x will be registered as latitude and longitude on a scale. And this latitude and longitude will serve as an address for anyone to locate you.

Similarly, an I.P. address serves as the website’s or a computer’s latitude and longitudinal coordinates on the Internet. Here, it uniquely identifies a device that is connected to the Internet.

For Example, at the time of this content piece being published, the IP-Addresses of two websites stand:

1. Nexgi.com : 172.67.152.176
2. Google.com :172.217.17.110

How does an I.P. address work?

To understand this, you’ll need to know that there are two versions of an I.P. address.

1.IPV4:

Any valid IPv4 address consists of three dots separating four sections of digits. These sections are generally termed N.N.N.N., where each team consists of decimal digits from 0 to 225.

When you enter an IPv4 address, the computers find it difficult to understand the decimal numbers. So, they convert it to a set of eight 1’s and 0’s or binary to be able to understand and redirect you to the website/computer on the network.

How does it convert the decimal digits?

The goal here is to help a computer (which only understands 1 and 0) to understand a number; it converts each section of the four digits to a set of eight binary numbers; for Example, Google’s IPV4 address stands as:

10101100. 11011001. 10001. 1101110

Every X here represents a bit. An IPv4 address is a 32-bit address. And, to estimate the number of devices that can be connected, these 32 bits are supported by a base 2.

That means An ipv4 connection supports a total of 2^32 =4294967296 devices.

2.IPV6:

The functioning of an IPV6 is a bit similar to an IPv4 address. But, the critical difference is that it’s a 128-bit hexadecimal address. In simple terms, it consists of 8 sections of hexadecimal characters separated by seven dots. Each team consists of 4 hexadecimal characters.

HexaDecimal characters: It’s a system of symbols that contains a combination of digits from 0-9 and alphabets from A-F.

How does it convert the hexadecimal characters?

It converts eight sections of hexadecimal characters to a set of 128 digits. And each unit is represented by a combination of 16 zeroes and ones.

For Example, an N.N.N.N.N.N.N.N is an example of an IPv6-Address where N represents hexadecimal characters. Meaning, An IPv6 Connection supports a total of 2^128 = 3.402823669209385e38 devices.

What are the types of I.P. addresses:

1. Static:

A fixed I.P. Address assigned to a device on a network is called a static I.P. It is ideal for businesses as it provides permanently fixed-IP addresses.

1. Dynamic:

An I.P. address is assigned to a host of computers from a range of I.P. addresses and is called a dynamic I.P. address.

For Example, you connect your computer to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider. To access the Internet, the I.S.P. assigns your computer a new I.P. address every time it relates to the Internet.

The I.P. address assigned by your isp will be from a range of I.P. addresses that your I.S.P. maintains.

Which type of I.P. address should you prefer for your business?

For any S&ME, we suggest you use a Dynamic I.P. address as it optimizes your investment. And, if you are a large corporation that deals with File Transfer Protocol, EMail Servers, VPN Servers, and Web Hosting Services, we’d recommend you prefer a static I.P. address.

Once done, open your MX-Records table and add the following data. It will allow you to transfer all the emails to the recipients of your domain name.