Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, is a protocol suite developed for communications over, often dissimilar, networks. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 provides extensive support for the TCP/IP suite for IP version 4 (IPv4), as both a protocol and a set of services for connectivity and management of IP internetworks. Knowledge of the basic concepts of TCP/IP is an absolute requirement for the proper understanding of the configuration, deployment, and troubleshooting of Windows Server 2003.
This subject describes how TCP/IP with IPv4 relates to other networking protocols, the functions it performs, how addresses are structured and assigned, and how packets are structured and routed.
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