Where does the computer get information about the network to which I am connected?

Question

Where does the computer get information about the network to which I am connected?

Answer 1

Unclear exactly what you are asking? Are you asking how the computer gets it's IP address?



All a network needs is the hardware address of the network interface on the computer and for the computer to have a "network address" (i.e. an IP address).



The hardware address, a.k.a. MAC address is set in the hardware itself at the time that the hardware is manufactured. In the OSI networking model this would be the layer 2 address. Layer 2 = Ethernet or WiFi for example.



The network address can be either configured on the computer as a static address (never changes, unless the user changes it). The more common way for the computer to obtain an IP address (this is specific to IP) is via a protocol called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). There are two components to DHCP, a DHCP client and a DHCP server. DHCP client runs on the computer and DHCP server can be run from a router or any of number of different types of servers (RADIUS server, Windows Server.....). The information provided via DHCP includes the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway address.



The DHCP client requests the network configuration from a DHCP server. If you want the gory details read RFC2131 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2131 that is the actual standard for DHCP written by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Answer 2

From the ISP, servers, other computers it connects to, and other devices it connects to.

Answer 3

The computer ping to know it.

Answer 4

It gets it from the DNS\DHCP server.