What is IP address? beginners guide

What is IP address? as a beginner in IT industry you must understand Internet Protocol. Protocol means some set of rules that maintain all devices to communicate with each other. IP stands for Internet Protocol understand IP before dealing with networking and Information Technology devices. IP is an address of a network device which gives unique ID on a network. Here we will discuss about IP address in details.

What is IP address in networking?

IP Address: An IP is a unique address assigned to each network device (e.g., Computer, Printer, Modem) to participate in a network for communication purpose. It is layer three protocol of OSI model.

Example of IP: 192.168.10.1 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

IP address is divide into two part Network and Host. Same network segment devices can establish communication between each other. Subnet mask on-bit (255) identify network-part of an IP. Host-bit (0) of Subnet mask define unique address in a network. IP address can identify source and destination device on the internet so that data(packet) can transmit from one location to another.

What is subnet mask?

Subnet mask is also consist by numeric numbers which identify host and network part of an IP address. on bit of subnet mask represent network, and off-bit of subnet mask represent host part of an IP address. Combination of 1s and 0s in host portion represent valid host address.

Types of IP address with example

Each devices must need an IP to communicate over internet, hence there are lots of IP required. in this segment you will understand two different types of IP address IPv4.0 and IPv6.0.

1. IPv4- IP version 4.0 is consist by 32 bit numbers, represented in doted decimal format. IPv4.0 can provide maximum 4,294,967,296 (2³²) unique IP.
2. IPv6- It is new generation IP addressing, consist by 128 bit numbers and represented in hexadecimal numbering format separated by colons. IPv6 can provide maximum 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 (2¹²⁸) unique IP addresses.

What is private IP address?

Private IP: Private IP address is non routable address and you can freely use this IP on any device of your network. You can not directly connect internet using this range of IP. Both IPv4 and IPv6 has private IP. Example of private IP in IPv4.0 reserved by IANA-

• Class A: 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255
• Class B: 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255
• Class C: 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255

What is Public IP Address?

Public IP: Public IP address is widely used on internet. IANA control this IP distribution. Using one public IP address you can connect a device on internet to establish communication.

IPv4 address classes with example

In IPv4 an address consists of 32 bits which limits the address space to 4294967296 (2³²) possible unique addresses. IPv4 reserves some addresses for special purposes such as private networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~270 million addresses).

IPv4 addresses are canonically represented in dot-decimal notation, which consists of four octet represented in decimal format. 

• Minimum value of any octet: 00000000 = 0.
• Maximum value of any octet:11111111 = 255.

IPv4.0 is divided into 5 classes- 

Class-A IP address:

• Class A provide maximum Network: 2⁷ = 128 (1-126=126)
• Class A provide maximum Host per network: 2²⁴ = 16777216
• Most significant Bit(MSB): 0xxxxxxx

0 can not be used as first octet. and range of 127 is reserved for loopback addressing; means host use this IP for self checking purpose.

Class-B IP address::

• Class A provide maximum Network: 64*256=16348
• Class A provide maximum Host per network: 256*256 = 65536
• Most significant Bit(MSB): 10xxxxxx

Class-C IP address::

• Class A provide maximum Network: 32*256*256=2097152
• Class A provide maximum Host per network: 256=256
• Most significant Bit(MSB): 110xxxxx

Class D:

• This range is  reserved for multicasting. device can communicate with multiple devices.
• Most significant Bit(MSB):1110xxxx

Class E:

• This range is reserved for Research & Development purpose.
• Most significant Bit(MSB):1111xxxx

Explain class full and class less IP address- 

• Class Full IP Address: IP containing default subnet mask of any class of IP is considered as class full IP.
• Class less IP: IP containing different value in subnet mask except 255 is considered as class less IP.

What is IPv6.0 IP address

Today there is huge demand of IP, because almost all devices has requirement to connect with Internet. but IPv4.0 is unable to fulfill the demand. Hence Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) explore new technologies to expand the Internet’s addressing capability. This next generation of the Internet Protocol increased from 32 to 128 bits or 16 octets. IPv6 provide maximum of 2¹²⁸ unique addresses or 340 trillion trillion trillion unique IP addresses. IPv6 address has many advantages over IPv40 like auto configuration, inbuild security, payload etc.

Example of IPv6.0 address- 2001:D254:AB10:20C1:0000:0000:0000:0001

But in a short we can write this address as 2001:D254:AB10:20C1::1

IPv6 Addresses types-

IPv6.0 is divided into three categories. this IP is still in developing mode and getting modified day by day. Below all three categories explained in a brief-

1. Unicast
2. Multicast
3. Anycast

• Unicast: Unicast address is divided into sub categories which can be assigned for host.

1. Global unique address- can communicate globally.
   • Ex- 2001:581:f3d1:241f::/64
2. Link-local address- interface configuration purpose 
   • Ex- fe80::/10
3. Site-local address-
4. Loopback address- for self checking, ip stack checking.
   • Ex- ::1/128
5. Unique-local address- just like private ip address of IPv4. can not communicate globally.
   • Ex- fc00::/7

• Multicast- This IP uses to send packet from one source to multiple destination systems at same time.

• Anycast- It is just like multicast address but it uses special method that allows to transmit packet to specified destination only.

In IP address beginners guide, hope you understand Internet Protocol tutorial.  Hope you understand basic and technical fundamentals which will help you in future and advanced networking studies.