IPv4 ADDRESS FORMAT
NOTATION ADDRESS FORMAT
• Binary (base 2)
• Dotted decimal (base 256)
• Hexadecimal
IP ADDRESS FORMAT
Originally IP addresses were divided into five different categories
called classes.
• These divided IP classes are class A, class B, class C, class D, and
class E. Out of these, classes A, B, and C are most important.
• Each address class defines a different number of bits for its network
prefix (network address) and host number (host address).
• The starting address bits decide from which class an address belongs.
Network Address: The network address specifies the unique number which is
assigned to your network.
In the figure, the network address takes two bytes of IP address.
Host Address: A host address is a specific address number assigned to each host
machine. With the help of the host address, each machine is identified in your
network.
The network address will be the same for each host in a network, but they must vary
in host address.
ADDRESS FORMAT IPv4
The address format of IPv4 is represented into 4-octets (32-bit), which is
divided into three different classes, namely class A, class B, and class C.
The above diagram shows the address format of IPv4. An IPv4 is a 32-bit
decimal address. It contains four octets or fields separated by 'dot,' and each
field is 8-bit in size. The number that each field contains should be in the
range of 0-255.
CLASS REPRESENTATION OF IPV4 ADDRESS FORMAT
CLASS A
❑Class A address uses only first higher order octet (byte) to identify the network
prefix, and remaining three octets (bytes) are used to define the individual host
addresses.
❑The class A address ranges between [Link] to [Link].
❑The first bit of the first octet is always set to 0 (zero), and next 7 bits determine
network address, and the remaining 24 bits determine host address.
❑So the first octet ranges from 0 to 127 (00000000 to 01111111).
CLASS B
❑Class B addresses use the initial two octets (two bytes) to identify the network
prefix, and the remaining two octets (two bytes) define host addresses.
❑The class B addresses are range between [Link] to [Link].
❑The first two bits of the first higher octet is always set to 10 (one and zero bit),
and next 14 bits determines the network address and remaining 16 bits
determines the host address.
❑So the first octet ranges from 128 to 191 (10000000 to 10111111).
CLASS C
❑ Class C addresses use the first three octets (three bytes) to identify the network
prefix, and the remaining last octet (one byte) defines the host address.
❑ The class C address ranges between [Link] to [Link].
❑ The first three bit of the first octet is always set to 110, and next 21 bits specify
network address and remaining 8 bits specify the host address.
❑ Its first octet ranges from 192 to 223 (11000000 to 11011111).
CLASS D
❑ Class D IP address is reserved for multicast addresses.
❑ Its first four bits of the first octet are always set to 1110, and the remaining bits
determine the host address in any IP address.
❑ The first higher octet bits are always set to 1110, and the remaining bits specify the
host address.
❑ The class D address ranges between [Link] to [Link].
❑ In multicasting, data is not assigned to any particular host machine, so it is not require
to find the host address from the IP address, and also, there is no subnet mask present
in class D.
CLASS E
❑Class E IP address is reserved for experimental purposes and future
use.
❑It does not contain any subnet mask in it.
❑The first higher octet bits are always set to 1111, and next remaining
bits specify the host address.
❑Class E address ranges between [Link] to [Link].
Very important:
❑In every IP address class, all host-number bits are specified by a power of 2 that
indicates the total numbers of the host's address that can create for a particular
network address.
❑Class A address can contain the maximum number of 224 (16,777,216) host
numbers.
❑Class B addresses contain the maximum number of 216 (65, 536) host numbers.
❑ And class C contains a maximum number of 28 (256) host numbers.