IP Address Classification & Category

IP Address is 32 bit logical address define in Network Header. This makes enable a computer to communicate with another computer on network. It is represented by Dotted decimal. It has four octets. Each octet is of 8 bit (8*4=32).

It has two versions. (i) IP v4 (ii) IPv6

IPv4 – 32 Bit

IPv6 – 128 Bit

It has two portions (i) Network Portion (ii) Host Portion

Class A, B, and C IP address formats.

Class A IP addresses are for big internetworks. The first octet is the network portion, and the last

three octets are the host portion. Only 256 numbers are available in the eight-bit network part, but 16,777,216 numbers are available in the host part of each of those network addresses.

Class B addresses are for medium-size internetworks. The first two octets are the network portion and the last two octets are the host portion. There are 65,536 available numbers in the

network  part and an equal number in the host part.

Class C addresses are just the opposite of class A. The first three octets are the network portion,

and the last octet is the host portion.

Address masks for class A, B, and C network addresses.

Class                      Mask                                          Dotted Decimal

A             11111111000000000000000000000000     255.0.0.0

B             11111111111111110000000000000000     255.255.0.0

C             11111111111111111111111100000000     255.255.255.0

The subnet mask may be represented in three different formats.

  Reserved Range by IANA for Private IP Addresses are as below:

A Class - 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255

B Class - 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255

C Class - 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255