IP Addressing & Subnetting

Million Aregawi
What is an IP Address?
• An IP address is a unique global address for a network
interface
• An IP address:
- is a 32 bit long identifier
- encodes a network number (network prefix)
and a host number

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

(IANA)
IP Addresses (cont.)

• 32 bits in length (IPv4)

• 64 bits in length (IPv6)
• Addresses are divided into a prefix and suffix
• The suffix is the host address
• The prefix is the network number
IP Address Format - Dotted Decimal

• IP addresses are generally read in dotted decimal

format.
• 0.0.0.0 through 255.255.255.255

• Much better than reading:

10000001 00110100 00000110 00000000
Dotted Decimal Notation

• IP addresses are written in a so-called dotted decimal

notation
• Each byte is identified by a decimal number in the range
[0..255]:

• Example:
10000000 10001111 10001001 10010000
1st Byte 2nd Byte 3rd Byte 4th Byte
= 128 = 143 = 137 = 144

128.143.137.144
The old way – Classful IP Addressing
IP Class Scheme

• From the previous figure, we see that the 32-bit

address is split into 4 octets.
• IP addresses are self identifying.
• If the first 4 bits of the first octet are
– 0xxx: Class A address
– 10xx: Class B address
– 110x: Class C address
– 1110: Class D address (Multicast)
– 1111: Class E address
Dotted Decimal with Classes

• Class A:
– 1 prefix octet (128 networks)
– 3 suffix octets (16777216 hosts)
• Class B:
– 2 prefix octets (16384 networks)
– 2 suffix octets (65536 hosts)
• Class C:
– 3 prefix octets (2097152 networks)
– 1 suffix octet (256 hosts)
Address Space
Class A Addresses
• Class A IP addresses use the 1st 8 bits (1st
Octet) to designate the Network address.
• The 1st bit which is always a 0, is used to
indicate the address as a Class A address &
the remaining 7 bits are used to designate the
Network.
• The other 3 octets contain the Host address.
Class A Addresses (Cont.)
• There are 128 Class A Network Addresses, but
because addresses with all zeros aren’t used &
address 127 is a special purpose address, 126 Class
A Networks are available.
Class A Addresses (Cont.)
• There are 16,777,214 Host addresses
available in a Class A address.
• Rather than remembering this number
exactly, you can use the following formula to
compute the number of hosts available in any
of the class addresses, where “n” represents
the number of bits in the host portion:
(2n – 2) = Number of available hosts
Class A Addresses (Cont.)
• For a Class A network, there are:
224 – 2 or 16,777,214 hosts.
• Half of all IP addresses are Class A
addresses.
• You can use the same formula to determine
the number of Networks in an address class.
• Eg., a Class A address uses 7 bits to
designate the network, so (27 – 2) = 126 or
there can be 126 Class A Networks.
Class B IP Addresses
• Class B addresses use the 1st 16 bits (two
octets) for the Network address.
• The last 2 octets are used for the Host
address.
• The 1st 2 bit, which are always 10, designate
the address as a Class B address & 14 bits
are used to designate the Network. This
leaves 16 bits (two octets) to designate the
Hosts.
Class B IP Addresses (Cont.)
• So how many Class B Networks can there be?
• Using our formula, (214 – 2), there can be 16,382
Class B Networks & each Network can have (216 – 2)
Hosts, or 65,534 Hosts.
Class C IP Addresses
• Class C addresses use the 1st 24 bits (three octets)
for the Network address & only the last octet for Host
addresses.the 1st 3 bits of all class C addresses are
set to 110, leaving 21 bits for the Network address,
which means there can be 2,097,150 (221 – 2) Class
C Networks, but only 254 (28 – 2) Hosts per Network.
Class C IP Addresses (Cont.)
Special Addresses
• A few addresses are set aside for specific purposes.
• Network addresses that are all binary zeros, all binary
ones & Network addresses beginning with 127 are
special Network addresses.
Special Addresses (Cont.)
Special Addresses (Cont.)
• Within each address class is a set of addresses that
are set aside for use in local networks sitting behind a
firewall or NAT (Network Address Translation) device
or Networks not connected to the Internet.
Special Addresses (Cont.)
• A list of these addresses for each IP address class:
Address Delegation

• A central authority exists for IP address delegation.

• In the US, it’s ARIN – American Registry for Internet
Numbers (http://www.arin.net)
• People just can’t arbitrarily use any IP network if their
network is publicly accessible! That would lead to
routing conflicts.
Address Delegation (cont.)

• RFC 1597 – Private networks

– 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255 (Full Class A)
– 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255 (16 Class B’s)
– 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255 (Full Class B)
Special Addresses

• Network address
– Host 0 address for specific class type
– 16.0.0.0 is the network address for the Class A
prefix of 16.
– 130.111.0.0 is the network address for the Class B
prefix of 130.111.
Special Addresses (cont.)

• Directed Broadcast Address (Network Broadcast

Address)
– A network suffix of all 1’s.
– 16.255.255.255 is the directed broadcast address
for the Class A prefix of 16.
– 130.111.255.255
Special Addresses (cont.)

• Limited Broadcast Address

– All 1’s in the entire address.
– Limited broadcast address is restricted to the local
subnet.
– 255.255.255.255
Special Addresses (cont.)

• Loopback addresses
– Loopbacks are used for testing. An IP looback is
application-level testing.
– Any information sent to the loopback address is
never passed to the network segment. It is handled
internally in the TCP/IP stack.
– 127.x.x.x
Special Addresses (cont.)

• This computer’s address

– If a computer doesn’t know what it’s own address is,
but needs to communicate to another machine, it
designates the address of 0.0.0.0 for itself.
– Applications include DHCP, BOOTP
Network prefix and Host number

• The network prefix identifies a network and the host number

identifies a specific host (actually, interface on the network).

network prefix host number

• How do we know how long the network prefix is?

– The network prefix is implicitly defined (see class-based
addressing)
– The network prefix is indicated by a netmask.
Example

• Example: ellington.cs.virginia.edu

128.143 137.144

• Network id is: 128.143.0.0

• Host number is: 137.144
• Network mask is: 255.255.0.0 or ffff0000

• Prefix notation: 128.143.137.144/16

» Network prefix is 16 bits long
 Classful IP Addressing

32 bits

Dotted-Decimal Notation
Special Purpose IP addresses

• 0.0.0.0: default route, used only during Startup(0.0.0.1 –

0.255.255.254)

• 127.0.0.0: loopback, test TCP/IP for IPC on local machine

(127.0.0.1 – 127.0.255.254)

• host all 0: this host

• host all 1: limited broadcast (local net)

/8
27-2 = 126 networks
224-2 = 16,777,214 hosts / network

/16
214 = 16,384 networks
216-2 = 65,534 hosts / network
/24
221 = 2,097,152 networks
28-2 = 254 hosts / network

Class D: (IP Multicasting)

0 4

1110

Class E: (Experimental use)

0 4

1111
Partition of the Classful IP Addresses

232 = 4,294,967,296 addresses

IP Address Space
Class A Class B Class C D E

50 % 25% 12.5% 6.25%

 Limitations to Classful Addressing
• Running out of address space soon
232 = 4,294,967,296 addresses

• Class boundaries did not foster

efficient allocation of address space
Lack of address class to support medium size company
-- Class B: 65534 hosts/network, too big!
-- Class C: 254 hosts/network, too small!
-- Use multiple class C addresses,
increase routing table!
Subnetting

• Problem: Organizations
have multiple networks University
which are independently University Network
Network
managed Engineering Medical
– Solution 1: Allocate one or School School
more addresses for each
network
• Difficult to manage Library
• From the outside of the
organization, each network
must be addressable.
– Solution 2: Add another
level of hierarchy to the Subnetting
IP addressing structure
Basic Idea of Subnetting

• Split the host number portion of an IP address into a

subnet number and a (smaller) host number.
• Result is a 3-layer hierarchy

network prefix host number

network prefix subnet number host number

• Then: extended network prefix

• Subnets can be freely assigned within the organization
• Internally, subnets are treated as separate networks
• Subnet structure is not visible outside the organization
Typical Addressing Plan for an Organization that
uses subnetting
• Each layer-2 network (Ethernet segment, FDDI segment) is
allocated a subnet address.

1 2 8 .1 4 3 .7 1 .0 / 2 4

1 2 8 .1 4 3 .1 6 .0 / 2 4

128.143.0.0/16
1 2 8 . 1 4 3 .7 .0 / 2 4 1 2 8 .1 4 3 .8 .0 / 2 4

1 2 8 .1 4 3 .1 7 .0 / 2 4

1 2 8 .1 4 3 .2 2 .0 / 2 4

1 2 8 .1 4 3 .1 3 6 .0 / 2 4
Advantages of Subnetting

• With subnetting, IP addresses use a 3-layer hierarchy:

» Network
» Subnet
» Host
• Improves efficiency of IP addresses by not consuming an
entire address space for each physical network.
• Reduces router complexity. Since external routers do not
know about subnetting, the complexity of routing tables at
external routers is reduced.

• Note: Length of the subnet mask need not be identical at all

subnetworks.
CIDR - Classless Interdomain Routing

• Goals:
– Restructure IP address assignments to increase efficiency
– Hierarchical routing aggregation to minimize route table
entries

Key Concept: The length of the network id (prefix) in the IP

addresses is kept arbitrary

• Consequence: Routers advertise the IP address and the

length of the prefix
CIDR Example

• CIDR notation of a network address:

192.0.2.0/18
• "18" says that the first 18 bits are the network part of the
address (and 14 bits are available for specific host
addresses)
• The network part is called the prefix

• Assume that a site requires a network address with 1000 addresses

• With CIDR, the network is assigned a continuous block of 1024 addresses
with a 22-bit long prefix
CIDR: Prefix Size vs. Host Space

CIDR Block Prefix # of Host Addresses

/27 32 hosts
/26 64 hosts
/25 128 hosts
/24 256 hosts
/23 512 hosts
/22 1,024 hosts
/21 2,048 hosts
/20 4,096 hosts
/19 8,192 hosts
/18 16,384 hosts
/17 32,768 hosts
/16 65,536 hosts
/15 131,072 hosts
/14 262,144 hosts
/13 524,288 hosts
CIDR and Address assignments

• Backbone ISPs obtain large block of IP addresses space and

then reallocate portions of their address blocks to their
customers.

Example:
• Assume that an ISP owns the address block 206.0.64.0/18, which
represents 16,384 (232-18=214) IP addresses
• Suppose a client requires 800 host addresses
• Assign a /22 block (512=29<800<1024=210 -> 32-10=22), e.g.,
206.0.68.0/22 gives a block of 1,024 (210) IP addresses.
CIDR and Routing Information

Company X :
206.0.68.0/22
ISP X owns:
206.0.64.0/18
204.188.0.0/15
209.88.232.0/21
Internet
Backbone ISP y :
209.88.237.0/24

Organization z1 : Organization z2 :
209.88.237.192/26 209.88.237.0/26
CIDR and Routing Information
Backbone routers do not know
anything about Company X, ISP
Y, or Organizations z1, z2.
Company X :

ISPISP 206.0.68.0/22
ISP X does not know about X owns:
y sends everything which matches
Organizations z1, z2. the prefix:
206.0.64.0/18 to Organizations z1
209.88.237.192/26
204.188.0.0/15to Organizations z2
209.88.237.0/26
209.88.232.0/21
Internet
ISP X sends everything which
Backbone
matches the prefix: ISP y :
206.0.68.0/22 to Company X,
209.88.237.0/24 to ISP y 209.88.237.0/24

Backbone sends everything

which matches the prefixes
Organization z1 : Organization z2 :
206.0.64.0/18, 204.188.0.0/15,
209.88.232.0/21 to ISP X. 209.88.237.192/26 209.88.237.0/26
CIDR and Routing

• Aggregation of routing table entries:

– 128.143.0.0/16 and 128.142.0.0/16 are represented as
128.142.0.0/15
• Longest prefix match: Routing table lookup finds the
routing entry that matches the longest prefix

Prefix Interface
What is the outgoing interface for 128.143.128.0/17 interface #1
128.143.137.0 ?
128.128.0.0/9 interface #2
128.0.0.0/4 interface #5

Routing table
IPv6 - IP Version 6

• IP Version 6
– Is the successor to the currently used IPv4
– Specification completed in 1994
– Makes improvements to IPv4 (no revolutionary changes)

• One (not the only !) feature of IPv6 is a significant increase in

size of the IP address to 128 bits (16 bytes)
• IPv6 will solve – for the foreseeable future – the
problems with IP addressing
IPv6 Header
32 bits
version Traffic Class Flow Label
(4 bits) (8 bits) (24 bits)
Next Header
Payload Length (16 bits) Hop Limits (8 bits)
(8 bits)

Source IP address (128 bits)

Destination IP address (128 bits)

Ethernet Header IP v 6 H e a d e r TCP Header A p p lic a t io n d a t a Ethernet Trailer

E th e rn e t fra m e
IPv6 vs. IPv4: Address Comparison

• IPv4 has a maximum of

232  4 billion addresses
• IPv6 has a maximum of
2128 = (232)4  4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion
addresses
Notation of IPv6 addresses

• Convention: The 128-bit IPv6 address is written as eight 16-

bit integers (using hexadecimal digits for each integer)
CEDF:BP76:3245:4464:FACE:2E50:3025:DF12

• Short notation:
• Abbreviations of leading zeroes:
CEDF:BP76:0000:0000:009E:0000:3025:DF12
 CEDF:BP76:0:0:9E :0:3025:DF12
• “:0000:0000” can be written as “::”
CEDF:BP76:0:0:FACE:0:3025:DF12 
CEDF:BP76::FACE:0:3025:DF12
• IPv6 addresses derived from IPv4 addresses have 96 leading zero bits.
Convention allows to use IPv4 notation for the last 32 bits.
::80:8F:89:90  ::128.143.137.144
IPv6 Provider-Based Addresses

• The first IPv6 addresses will be allocated to a provider-based

plan
Registry Provider Subscriber Subnetwork Interface
010
ID ID ID ID ID

• Type: Set to “010” for provider-based addresses

• Registry: identifies the agency that registered the address
The following fields have a variable length (recommeded length in “()”)
• Provider: Id of Internet access provider (16 bits)
• Subscriber: Id of the organization at provider (24 bits)
• Subnetwork: Id of subnet within organization (32 bits)
• Interface: identifies an interface at a node (48 bits)
More on IPv6 Addresses

• The provider-based addresses have a similar flavor as CIDR

addresses

• IPv6 provides address formats for:

– Unicast – identifies a single interface
– Multicast – identifies a group. Datagrams sent to a
multicast address are sent to all members of the group
– Anycast – identifies a group. Datagrams sent to an anycast
address are sent to one of the members in the group.