An IP address (with IP for Internet Protocol) is an identifier, which is assigned, permanently or temporarily, to each machine connected to a computer network (PC, telephone, smart TV, connected object, ...).
IPv4 (version 4) addresses are 32-bit coded. They are generally represented in decimal notation with four numbers between 0 and 255, separated by dots. Example: 172.16.254.1
A server has as many addresses as there are network cards. Some addresses have a reserved use:
Subnetwork
The first bits of the IP address specify the network number, the next bits the host number. The number of bits in the network is specified by the network mask:
When we scan 10.10.10.1/24, we test all addresses from 10.10.10.1 to 10.10.10.255.
192.168.X.X/16, 172.16.0.0/12 and 10.X.X.X/8
The 192.168.X.X/16, 172.16.0.0/12 and 10.X.X.X/8 networks are dedicated to local networks. Such adresses should never be forwarded by routers or boxes to Internet. You must train scans and exploits ONLY on hosts on those networks.
$ ip addr
1: lo: mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
73: eth1@if74: mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default
link/ether 02:42:0a:0a:0a:03 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff link-netnsid 0
inet 10.10.10.3/24 brd 10.10.10.255 scope global eth1
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
$ ifconfig
eth0: flags=4163 mtu 1500
inet 10.10.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.10.0.255
ether 02:42:0a:0a:00:02 txqueuelen 0 (Ethernet)
RX packets 7567 bytes 573298 (559.8 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 7073 bytes 4046236 (3.8 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
eth1: flags=4163 mtu 1500
inet 10.10.10.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.10.10.255
ether 02:42:0a:0a:0a:03 txqueuelen 0 (Ethernet)
RX packets 15569 bytes 2618290 (2.4 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 20985 bytes 1976399 (1.8 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0