Gateway Parts

why it is important for gateway and neworked computers on a network to have the same IP network add?

Public Comments

1. If they are not in the same network defined by the netmask they can not talk to each other.
2. The function of the gateway is to forward your packets to "other" networks, if the gateway is in another network (different network ID) how could you reach it. more technical: When a computer want to send a packet it will check for the destination IP address, if it has the same network ID as itself, it knows that communication will be via layer 2 directly so, it will issue ARP request for this IP. If it is in another logical network, it knows it should route this packet then it will issue ARP request for the gateway. ARP requests are issued only for the IP's in the same logical network