6.

0 IP Addressing

6.1 IP address Class

6.2 IP V4, IPV6
 IP history
• Its development began in 1974, led by computer
scientists Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. It is frequently used in
conjunction with the Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP.
Together they are referred to as TCP/IP.
• The first major version of the Internet Protocol was version 4,
or IPv4. In 1981, it was formally defined in RFC 791 by the
Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF.
• Historic document: Read the text of RFC 791.
• The successor to IPv4 is IPv6, which was formalized by the
IETF in 1998. It was designed to eventually replace IPv4. As of
2018, IPv6 governs approximately 20% of all Internet traffic.
 IP addresses
• An IP address is a number identifying of a
computer or another device on the Internet.
• It is similar to a mailing address, which
identifies where postal mail comes from and
where it should be delivered.
• IP addresses uniquely identify the source and
destination of data transmitted with the
Internet Protocol.
 IPv4
• IP address is an address having information
about how to reach a specific host, especially
outside the LAN.
• An IP address is a 32 bit unique address having
an address space of 232.
• Generally, there are two notations in which IP
address is written, dotted decimal notation
and hexadecimal notation.
Dotted Decimal Notation
Hexadecimal Notation
 Some points to be noted about dotted
decimal notation:
• The value of any segment (byte) is between 0
and 255 (both included).
• There are no zeroes preceding the value in any
segment (054 is wrong, 54 is correct).
 Classful Addressing
• The 32 bit IP address is divided into five sub-classes. These are:
• Class A
• Class B
• Class C
• Class D
• Class E
• Each of these classes has a valid range of IP addresses. Classes
D and E are reserved for multicast and experimental purposes
respectively.
• The order of bits in the first octet determine the classes of IP
address.
• IPv4 address is divided into two parts:
• Network ID
• Host ID
• The class of IP address is used to determine the bits
used for network ID and host ID and the number of
total networks and hosts possible in that particular
class.
• Each ISP or network administrator assigns IP address
to each device that is connected to its network.
 Class A Address
• The first bit of the first octet is always set to 0 (zero). Thus
the first octet ranges from 1 – 127, i.e.

• Class A addresses only include IP starting from 1.x.x.x to

126.x.x.x only. The IP range 127.x.x.x is reserved for loopback
IP addresses.
• The default subnet mask for Class A IP address is 255.0.0.0
which implies that Class A addressing can have 126 networks
(27-2) and 16777214 hosts (224-2).
• Class A IP address format is
thus: 0NNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH
 Class B Address
• An IP address which belongs to class B has the first two
bits in the first octet set to 10, i.e.

• Class B IP Addresses range from 128.0.x.x to 191.255.x.x.

The default subnet mask for Class B is 255.255.x.x.
• Class B has 16384 (214) Network addresses and 65534
(216-2) Host addresses.
• Class B IP address format
is: 10NNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH
 Class C Address
• The first octet of Class C IP address has its first 3 bits
set to 110, that is −
• Class C IP addresses range from 192.0.0.x to
223.255.255.x. The default subnet mask for Class C is
255.255.255.x.
• Class C gives 2097152 (221) Network addresses and
254 (28-2) Host addresses.
• Class C IP address format
is: 110NNNNN.NNNNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHH
H
 Class D Address

• Very first four bits of the first octet in Class D IP

addresses are set to 1110, giving a range of −

• Class D has IP address range from 224.0.0.0 to

239.255.255.255.
• Class D is reserved for Multicasting.
• In multicasting data is not destined for a particular
host, that is why there is no need to extract host
address from the IP address, and Class D does not have
any subnet mask.
 Class E Address
• This IP Class is reserved for experimental
purposes only for R&D or Study.
• IP addresses in this class ranges from
240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254.
• Like Class D, this class too is not equipped with
any subnet mask.
 IPv6
• The main advantage of IPv6 over IPv4 is the larger
address space which is approximately
3.4×1038 addresses.
• The total number of IPv6 addresses is
340282366920938463463374607431768211456 (34
0 undecillion 282 decillion 366 nonillion 920 octillion
938 septillion 463 sextillion 463 quintillion 374
quadrillion 607 trillion 431 billion 768 million 211
thousand 456) while in IPv4 it was just
4294967296 (4 billion 294 million 967 thousand 296)
 IPv6 Address Basics
• An IPv6 address is 128 bits as opposed to a 32
bit IPv4. The 128 bits of an IPv6 address are
represented in 8 groups of 16 bits each. Each
group is written as four hexadecimal
digits and the groups are separated by
colons (:). An example of this representation
is 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:ff00:0042:8329.
 In IPv6 representation, we have three
addressing methods :
• Unicast Address: Unicast Address identifies a single network
interface. A packet sent to unicast address is delivered to the
interface identified by that address.

• Multicast Address: Multicast Address is used by multiple hosts,

called as Group, acquires a multicast destination address. These
hosts need not be geographically together. If any packet is sent
to this multicast address, it will be distributed to all interfaces
corresponding to that multicast address.

• Anycast Address: Anycast Address is assigned to a group of

interfaces. Any packet sent to anycast address will be delivered
to only one member interface (mostly nearest host possible).
• Assignment: Difference between IPv4 and IPv6