Network Layer:
Logical Addressing
IPv4 ADDRESSES
An IPv4 address is a 32-bit address that uniquely and
universally defines the connection of a device (for
example, a computer or a router) to the Internet.
Topics discussed in this section:
Address Space
Notations
Classful Addressing
Classless Addressing
Network Address Translation (NAT)
Note
An IPv4 address is 32 bits long.
Note
The IPv4 addresses are unique
and universal.
Note
The address space of IPv4 is
232 or 4,294,967,296.
Figure Dotted-decimal notation and binary notation for an IPv4 address
Note
Numbering systems are reviewed in
Appendix B.
Example
Change the following IPv4 addresses from binary
notation to dotted-decimal notation.
Solution
Example
Change the following IPv4 addresses from dotted-decimal
notation to binary notation.
Solution
Example 3
Find the error, if any, in the following IPv4 addresses.
Solution
a. There must be no leading zero (045).
b. There can be no more than four numbers.
c. Each number needs to be less than or equal to 255.
d. A mixture of binary notation and dotted-decimal
notation is not allowed.
Note
In classful addressing, the address
space is divided into five classes:
A, B, C, D, and E.
Figure Finding the classes in binary and dotted-decimal notation
Example
Find the class of each address.
a. 00000001 00001011 00001011 11101111
b. 11000001 10000011 00011011 11111111
c. [Link]
d. [Link]
Solution
a. The first bit is 0. This is a class A address.
b. The first 2 bits are 1; the third bit is 0. This is a class C
address.
c. The first byte is 14; the class is A.
d. The first byte is 252; the class is E.
Table Number of blocks and block size in classful IPv4 addressing
Note
In classful addressing, a large part of the
available addresses were wasted.
Table Default masks for classful addressing
Note
Classful addressing, which is almost
obsolete, is replaced with classless
addressing.
Private IP Address
▪ Reserved for private networks (homes, schools, offices,
enterprises).
▪ Cannot be routed directly on the Internet.
▪ Can be reused by different organizations.
▪ Devices with private IPs access the Internet through
Network Address Translation (NAT).
▪ The private IPv4 address ranges defined by RFC ( Request
for Comments) standard 1918.
Public IP Address
▪ Assigned by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
▪ Globally unique.
▪ Reachable over the Internet.
▪ Used by websites, servers, and Internet-connected
devices
Examples:
▪ [Link] (Google DNS)
▪ [Link] (Cloudflare DNS)
▪ [Link] (Google)
Public IP Address
Private IP Range CIDR Notation
[Link] – [Link] [Link]/8
[Link] – [Link] [Link]/12
[Link] – [Link] [Link]/16
Example
Figure shows a block of addresses, in both binary and
dotted-decimal notation, granted to a small business that
needs 16 addresses.
We can see that the restrictions are applied to this block.
The addresses are contiguous. The number of addresses
is a power of 2 (16 = 24), and the first address is divisible
by 16. The first address, when converted to a decimal
number, is 3,440,387,360, which when divided by 16
results in 215,024,210.
Figure A block of 16 addresses granted to a small organization
Note
In IPv4 addressing, a block of
addresses can be defined as
x.y.z.t /n
in which x.y.z.t defines one of the
addresses and the /n defines the mask.
Note
The first address in the block can be
found by setting the rightmost
32 − n bits to 0s.
Example
A block of addresses is granted to a small organization.
We know that one of the addresses is [Link]/28.
What is the first address in the block?
Solution
The binary representation of the given address is
11001101 00010000 00100101 00100111
If we set 32−28 rightmost bits to 0, we get
11001101 00010000 00100101 0010000
or
[Link]
Note
The last address in the block can be
found by setting the rightmost
32 − n bits to 1s.
Example
A block of addresses is granted to a small organization.
We know that one of the addresses is [Link]/28.
Find the last address for the block.
Solution
The binary representation of the given address is
11001101 00010000 00100101 00100111
If we set 32 − 28 rightmost bits to 1, we get
11001101 00010000 00100101 00101111
or
[Link]
Note
The number of addresses in the block
can be found by using the formula
232−n.
Example
Find the number of addresses for [Link]/28.
Solution
The value of n is 28, which means that number
of addresses is 2 32−28 or 16.
Example
Another way to find the first address, the last address, and
the number of addresses is to represent the mask as a 32-
bit binary (or 8-digit hexadecimal) number. This is
particularly useful when we are writing a program to find
these pieces of information. In Example the /28 can be
represented as
11111111 11111111 11111111 11110000
(twenty-eight 1s and four 0s).
Find
a. The first address
b. The last address
c. The number of addresses.
Example (continued)
Solution
a. The first address can be found by ANDing the given
addresses with the mask. ANDing here is done bit by
bit. The result of ANDing 2 bits is 1 if both bits are 1s;
the result is 0 otherwise.
Example (continued)
b. The last address can be found by ORing the given
addresses with the complement of the mask. ORing
here is done bit by bit. The result of ORing 2 bits is 0 if
both bits are 0s; the result is 1 otherwise. The
complement of a number is found by changing each 1
to 0 and each 0 to 1.
Example (continued)
c. The number of addresses can be found by
complementing the mask, interpreting it as a decimal
number, and adding 1 to it.
Figure A network configuration for the block [Link]/28
Note
The first address in a block is
normally not assigned to any device;
it is used as the network address that
represents the organization
to the rest of the world.
Figure Two levels of hierarchy in an IPv4 address
Figure A frame in a character-oriented protocol
Note
Each address in the block can be
considered as a two-level
hierarchical structure:
the leftmost n bits (prefix) define
the network;
the rightmost 32 − n bits define
the host.
Figure Configuration and addresses in a subnetted network
Figure Three-level hierarchy in an IPv4 address
Example
An ISP is granted a block of addresses starting with
[Link]/16 (65,536 addresses). The ISP needs to
distribute these addresses to three groups of customers as
follows:
a. The first group has 64 customers; each needs 256
addresses.
b. The second group has 128 customers; each needs 128
addresses.
c. The third group has 128 customers; each needs 64
addresses.
Design the subblocks and find out how many addresses
are still available after these allocations.
Example (continued)
Solution
Group 1
For this group, each customer needs 256 addresses. This
means that 8 (log2 256) bits are needed to define each
host. The prefix length is then 32 − 8 = 24. The addresses
are
Example (continued)
Group 2
For this group, each customer needs 128 addresses. This
means that 7 (log2 128) bits are needed to define each
host. The prefix length is then 32 − 7 = 25. The addresses
are
Example (continued)
Group 3
For this group, each customer needs 64 addresses. This
means that 6 (log264) bits are needed to each host. The
prefix length is then 32 − 6 = 26. The addresses are
Number of granted addresses to the ISP: 65,536
Number of allocated addresses by the ISP: 40,960
Number of available addresses: 24,576
Figure 19.9 An example of address allocation and distribution by an ISP
Table Addresses for private networks
Figure A NAT implementation
Figure Addresses in a NAT
Figure NAT address translation
Table Five-column translation table
Figure An ISP and NAT
IPv6 ADDRESSES
Despite all short-term solutions, address depletion is
still a long-term problem for the Internet. This and
other problems in the IP protocol itself have been the
motivation for IPv6.
Topics discussed in this section:
Structure
Address Space
Note
An IPv6 address is 128 bits long.
Figure IPv6 address in binary and hexadecimal colon notation
Figure Abbreviated IPv6 addresses
Example
Expand the address 0:15::1:12:1213 to its original.
Solution
We first need to align the left side of the double colon to
the left of the original pattern and the right side of the
double colon to the right of the original pattern to find
how many 0s we need to replace the double colon.
This means that the original address is.
Table Type prefixes for IPv6 addresses
Table Type prefixes for IPv6 addresses (continued)
Figure Prefixes for provider-based unicast address
Figure Multicast address in IPv6
Figure Reserved addresses in IPv6
Figure Local addresses in IPv6