IP Address Explanation

<<-- IP Address Explained -->>

In this article, I will be demonstrating how an IP address is assembled. Each machine connected to the Internet has an unique number in order to identity the host, hence this is called an "IP Address". An IP address looks like the one shown below:

216.27.61.137

An IP address normally takes the form of decimal format "dotted decimal number" rather than a binary form. Though computers need to make use of binary form since it can only understand that. The binary form shown below is the same as the IP address written above:

11011000.00011011.00111101.10001001

Each eight bits found in the IP address above is called an "octet". If you add all the four digit numbers together you'll end up with 32, therefore IP addresses are considered to be 32-bit. IN this scenario we are talking about IPv4 addresses. You can have two diffrent states (1 or 0) for every eight bits and therefore written as 2^8 or 256 per octet. Therefore, each octet can have a value between 0 and 255 (since 0 is included also). Combining the four octets and you end up with 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 values which are unique!

As one can see, there is a possible combination of nearly 4.3 billion. Most of these IP address are reserved and can't be used such as the IP address 0.0.0.0 is reserved for the default network and 255.255.255.255 is reserved for broadcasts.

IP addresses are grouped into classes and therefore octets help make this simpler. With this being used, you can split IP address with their own department. Octets are split into two sections: the Net and Host.

The Net is always the first octet and it determines the network a host belongs to. On the other hand, the host, also referred to as Node/Machine determines the computer on the network. The host sections always contains the last octet.

IP addresses are grouped into five different IP classes.

Default Network - The IP address of 0.0.0.0 is used for the default network.

Loopback - The IP address 127.0.0.1 is considered to be the "loopback address" and it's use is it configure your own settings by sending a message to yourself. It is nomrally used to troubleshoot and test your own network (NIC Card).

IP Address Classes

Class A Range 1 - 127 (Reserved for loopback and internal testing)

Net Host or Node
115. 24.53.107

Class B Range 128 - 191
Class C Range 192 - 223
Class D Range 224 - 239 (Reserved for multicast)
Class E Range 240 - 255 (Reserved for experimentation, used for research)

Private Address Space

Class A
10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255

Class B
172.16.0.0. to 172.32.255.255

Class C
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255

Default Subnet Masks

Class A
255.0.0.0

Class B
255.255.0.0

Class C
255.255.255.0

Until next time,
DarkSolo