Chapter 4

IP Addresses: Classful Addressing

Objectives
Upon completion you will be able to: Understand IPv4 addresses and classes Identify the class of an IP address Find the network address given an IP address Understand masks and how to use them Understand subnets and supernets
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4.1 INTRODUCTION
The identifier used in the IP layer of the TCP/IP protocol suite to identify each device connected to the Internet is called the Internet address or IP address. An IP address is a 32-bit address that uniquely and universally defines the connection of a host or a router to the Internet. IP addresses are unique. They are unique in the sense that each address defines one, and only one, connection to the Internet. Two devices on the Internet can never have the same address.

The topics discussed in this section include: Address Space Notation

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Note: An IP address is a 32-bit address.

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Note: The IP addresses are unique.

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Note: The address space of IPv4 is 232 or 4,294,967,296.

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Figure 4.1

Dotted-decimal notation

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Example 1
Change the following IP addresses from binary notation to dotted-decimal notation.

a. 10000001 00001011 00001011 11101111 b. 11000001 10000011 00011011 11111111 c. 11100111 11011011 10001011 01101111 d. 11111001 10011011 11111011 00001111
Solution We replace each group of 8 bits with its equivalent decimal number (see Appendix B) and add dots for separation:

a. 129.11.11.239 c. 231.219.139.111
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b. 193.131.27.255 d. 249.155.251.15
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Example 2
Change the following IP addresses from dotted-decimal notation to binary notation. a. 111.56.45.78 c. 241.8.56.12 b. 221.34.7.82 d. 75.45.34.78

Solution
We replace each decimal number with its binary equivalent:

a. 01101111 00111000 00101101 01001110 b. 11011101 00100010 00000111 01010010 c. 11110001 00001000 00111000 00001100 d. 01001011 00101101 00100010 01001110
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Example 3
Find the error, if any, in the following IP addresses: a. 111.56.045.78 b. 221.34.7.8.20

c. 75.45.301.14

d. 11100010.23.14.67

Solution
a. There are no leading zeroes in dotted-decimal notation (045). b. We may not have more than four numbers in an IP address. c. In dotted-decimal notation, each number is less than or equal to 255; 301 is outside this range. d. A mixture of binary notation and dotted-decimal notation is not allowed.
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4.2 CLASSFUL ADDRESSING

IP addresses, when started a few decades ago, used the concept of classes. This architecture is called classful addressing. In the mid-1990s, a new architecture, called classless addressing, was introduced and will eventually supersede the original architecture. However, part of the Internet is still using classful addressing, but the migration is very fast. The topics discussed in this section include:

Recognizing Classes Netid and Hostid Classes and Blocks Network Addresses Mask CIDR Notation

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Figure 4.2

Occupation of the address space

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Figure 4.3

Finding the class in binary notation

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Example 6
Find the class of each address: a. 00000001 00001011 00001011 11101111 b. 11000001 10000011 00011011 11111111 c. 10100111 11011011 10001011 01101111 d. 11110011 10011011 11111011 00001111 Solution See the procedure in Figure 4.4. 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 bit is 0; the second bit is 1. This is a class B address. d. The first 4 bits are 1s. This is a class E address..
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Figure 4.5

Finding the class in decimal notation

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Example 7
Find the class of each address: a. 227.12.14.87 d. 252.5.15.111 b.193.14.56.22 e.134.11.78.56 c.14.23.120.8

Solution a. The first byte is 227 (between 224 and 239); the class is D. b. The first byte is 193 (between 192 and 223); the class is C. c. The first byte is 14 (between 0 and 127); the class is A. d. The first byte is 252 (between 240 and 255); the class is E. e. The first byte is 134 (between 128 and 191); the class is B.

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Figure 4.6

Netid and hostid

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Classes and Blocks

Class A There

are 125 blocks are available for this class.

Each block contains 16,777,216 addresses.

The first address is called network address. The last address is reserved for special purpose.
Millions Class B There

of class A addresses are wasted.

class. Each block contains 65,536 addresses. Many class B addresses are wasted.
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are 16,368 blocks are available for this

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Note:

There are 2,096,896 class C blocks are assigned to organizations.

Each block in this class contains 256 addresses.

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Note: Class D addresses are used for multicasting; there is only one block in this class.

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Note: Class E addresses are reserved for future purposes; most of the block is wasted.

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Note: In classful addressing, the network address the first address in the block. The class, the block and the range of addresses can automatically be inferred from the network address.

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Example 9
Given the network address 17.0.0.0, find the class, the block, and the range of the addresses.

Solution The class is A because the first byte is between 0 and 127. The block has a netid of 17. The addresses range from 17.0.0.0 to 17.255.255.255.

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Example 10
Given the network address 132.21.0.0, find the class, the block, and the range of the addresses.

Solution The class is B because the first byte is between 128 and 191. The block has a netid of 132.21. The addresses range from 132.21.0.0 to 132.21.255.255.

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Example 11
Given the network address 220.34.76.0, find the class, the block, and the range of the addresses.

Solution The class is C because the first byte is between 192 and 223. The block has a netid of 220.34.76. The addresses range from 220.34.76.0 to 220.34.76.255.

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Figure 4.10

Masking concept

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Figure 4.11 AND operation

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Table 4.2 Default masks

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Note: The network address is the beginning address of each block. It can be found by applying the default mask to any of the addresses in the block (including itself). It retains the netid of the block and sets the hostid to zero.
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Example 12
Given the address 23.56.7.91, find the beginning address (network address).

Solution The default mask is 255.0.0.0, which means that only the first byte is preserved and the other 3 bytes are set to 0s. The network address is 23.0.0.0.

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Example 13
Given the address 132.6.17.85, find the beginning address (network address).

Solution The default mask is 255.255.0.0, which means that the first 2 bytes are preserved and the other 2 bytes are set to 0s. The network address is 132.6.0.0.

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Example 14
Given the address 201.180.56.5, find the beginning address (network address).

Solution The default mask is 255.255.255.0, which means that the first 3 bytes are preserved and the last byte is set to 0. The network address is 201.180.56.0.

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Note:

Note that we must not apply the default mask of one class to an address belonging to another class.

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4.4 SUBNETTING AND SUPERNETTING

The topics discussed in this section include:
Subnetting Supernetting Supernet Mask Obsolescence

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Note:
IP addresses are designed with two levels of hierarchy.

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Figure 4.20

A network with two levels of hierarchy (not subnetted)

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Figure 4.21

A network with three levels of hierarchy (subnetted)

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Figure 4.22

Addresses in a network with and without subnetting

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Figure 4.24

Default mask and subnet mask

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Example 15
What is the subnetwork address if the destination address is 200.45.34.56 and the subnet mask is 255.255.240.0? Solution We apply the AND operation on the address and the subnet mask.
Address Subnet Mask

11001000 00101101 00100010 00111000 11111111 11111111 11110000 00000000

Subnetwork Address 11001000 00101101 00100000 00000000.

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Figure 4.25

Comparison of a default mask and a subnet mask

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Figure 4.26

A supernetwork

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Note:

In subnetting, we need the first address of the subnet and the subnet mask to define the range of addresses.
In supernetting, we need the first address of the supernet and the supernet mask to define the range of addresses.
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Figure 4.27

Comparison of subnet, default, and supernet masks

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Note: The idea of subnetting and supernetting of classful addresses is almost obsolete.

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