networking question

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 13:44 -0700, Gerhard Magnus wrote:
> The WAN information includes an "IP
> address" and a "Gateway" which differ only in their last two sections
> (i.e. IP address xxx.xxx.181.193 and Gateway xxx.xxx.180.1) Why are
> these two addresses needed?

It's important to understand that an IP address doesn't identify a
machine, it identifies a connection point. Since the gateway (router) is
connected to two networks (the LAN on one side and the Internet on the
other), it has two connection points and hence two IP addresses.

poc