INTRODUCTION

TO IP
ADDRESSING
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WHAT IS AN IP ADDRESS?
An IP Address is used as an identifier on the TCP/IP network.

A few examples of devices that can have an IP addres include:

• Pc’s
• Printers
• Scanners
• Phones
• Tablets
• Smart Watches

IP addresses can be set either manually or can be dynamically

assigned using a DHCP server.
The vast majority of home users would use DHCP. It is less secure, but
more accessible to the end user
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IP ADDRESSING
IP addressing uses a hierarchical structure.
This means the address is broken up into 2 parts:
• Network part:
• This part is useful to routers when forwarding on packets
to other routers. When sending information on to other
networks, a router doesn’t care about specific hosts
• Host Part
• This is only unique to the local network to find a specific
host
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EXAMPLE
An example that involves hierarchy is a phone number:
61 03 9999 1111
61: Australia
03: Melbourne
9999: Area/Suburb
1111: One phone/House
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READING AN IPV4 ADDRESS

We read an IP address as a series of decimal numbers as they are
easier to remember.
A computer however reads these numbers in binary.

EXAMPLE:
We would read an IP address as 192.168.10.10
A computer would read it as:
11000000.10101000.00001010.00001010

An IP address is broken up into 4 bytes, with each octet maxing out

at 255.
The reason for this is that an byte is made up of 8 bits.

More on binary, bits and bytes will be covered in week 3

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UNDERSTANDING AN
IPV4 ADDRESS
As previously mentioned, an IP address is broken up into 2
parts:
Network prefix (or network number) and
a Host portion
Take the IP address we have been using:
• 192.168.10.10
• The network portion of this address would be
• 192.168.10
• The host portion would be:
• 10
Why is this the case?
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IP CLASSES
This all comes down to the classes that the specific IP
address falls into.
There are 3 classes that we will be using in this course:
• Classes:
• A
• B
• C
The first byte in any IP address tells us which class an IP
address belongs to.
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CLASS A
If the value of the first byte is between 0 and 127 then we
have a class A IP address.
In class A, only the first byte make ups the network portion of
the address, leaving 3 bytes as host portions.
This allows a class A address to have the most amount of
hosts available to it.
The maths behind it is pretty straight forward:
256x256x256 = 16,777,216
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CLASS B
If the value of the first byte is between 128 and 191 then we
have a class B IP address.
In class B, the first 2 bytes make ups the network portion of
the address, leaving 2 bytes as host portions.
This allows a class B address to have the second most
amount of hosts available to it.
256x256 = 65,536
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CLASS C
If the value of the first byte is between 192 and 223 then we
have a class C IP address.
In class C, the first 3 bytes make ups the network portion of
the address, leaving 1 byte as host portions.
This only allows class C addresses to have the least amount
of hosts available to it.
256 = 256
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MATHS
Lets break down the equation so we can understand it better:
An example of a class A IP address would be:
10.0.0.0
An example of a class B address would be:
172.16.0.0
An example of a Class C address would be:
192.168.1.0
The 0’s in each address play an important role in determining
the number of addresses we have available in each class.
256 x 256 x 256
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MATHS
• When determining how to calculate the number of addresses
think of a clock
• When a clock reaches :59 the seconds reset to :0, but the
minutes increment by 1 leaving us with 1:00
• :58
• :59
• 1:00
• The same thing happens when we go from minutes to hours
• 59:58
• 59:59
• 1:00:00
• Going from class C to Class B, and from Class B to class A
works exactly the same way. The only difference is we are
working with bigger numbers.
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UNDERSTANDING IP
CLASSES
• For class C we only have to take into account the last byte
• So the number of addresses found in class C is 256
• For class B, once the last byte reaches .255, that byte rolls
back to .0, but the 3rd byte increments by 1:
• 172.16.0.254
• 172.16.0.255
• 172.16.1.0
• For Class A, we just follow the same pattern. Once the 3rd
byte reaches 255, and the 4th byte reaches 255, both reset to
0 and the second byte increments:
• 10.0.255.254
• 10.0.255.255
• 10.1.0.0
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APPROPRIATE USE OF
CLASSES
Where does each class fit?
Class C best suits home or small office users
Class B best suits medium sized organisations right up to
the scale of a university (like RMIT)
Class A best suits large scale organisations such as
governments, and companies like Microsoft or Apple
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NETWORK
ADDRESSES
A network address is used as an identifier for that network
that allows devices to send information to each other.
It allows us to group or split a range of end devices so we, or
computers can identify them in a network.
A network address will have all binary 0’s in the host portion
of the address:
Class A: 10.0.0.0
Class B: 172.16.0.0
Class C: 192.168.1.0
Network addresses will be used quite extensively when we
are setting up routing protocols
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BROADCAST
ADDRESSES
A broadcast address is used to transmit messages to all
devices found in that network

A broadcast address will have all binary 1’s in the host

portion of the address:
Class A: 10.255.255.255
Class B: 172.16.255.255
Class C: 192.168.1.255
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HOST RANGE
When it comes to calculating the hosts available to be configured, we
cannot include the network or the broadcast addresses.
We will use a class C address for this example:
as it has a maximum of 256 addresses.
However we are unable to assign the network address to a host:
192.168.1.0,
nor are we able to assign the broadcast address:
192.168.1.255
We can assign everything in between. This is our host range:
192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254
This gives us 254 hosts.
We will always subtract 2 from the number of addresses to get the actual
number of available hosts
Class B :65,536 – 2 = 65,534 available hosts
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SUBNET MASKS
A subnet mask is used in conjunction with an IP address and
tells a networked device which network it belongs to.
It is a separate field to an IP address.
Example:
10.0.0.0 is a class A address with a subnet mask:
255.0.0.0
The 255 in the subnet mask, is telling the computer that this
portion of the IP address is the network portion, while the 0’s
tell the computer that these areas of the IP address should be
expecting host numbers.
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SUBNET MASKS
Class B:
172.16.0.0
255.255.0.0
Class C:
192.168.1.0
255.255.255.0
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SUBNET MASKS
These subnet masks will come up automatically when an IP
address is input into a windows config.
This is because the PC will read the first byte of an IP and
assign the default subnet mask accordingly.
You should however get into the habit of typing it in anyway
as it will become more important to do so as we go further
into the course.
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SUBNET MASKS
You will often see the following in a config sheet:
10.0.0.0 /8
That does the /8 mean?
It is just a short hand way of saying:
255.0.0.0.
This is because 255 in binary is made up of eight 1’s.
Class B:
172.16.0.0 /16
Class C:
192.168.1.0 /24
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TESTING YOUR NIC

There is a simple test to see if there is a problem with your
NIC.
Simply open CMD and type:
ping 127.0.0.1
This will ping your local NIC. You can also connect to a
dedicated server using this address, if its being hosted on
your computer.
The ping command can be quite useful to test connectivity
between your PC and other devices. Try it out when you get a
chance next.
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SENDING
INFORMATION
So now that we know all about IP addressing, lets take a brief
look at how we would send information from one network to
another with IP addresses
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SENDING INFORMATION
EXAMPLE
Look at the following address:
82 Victoria Street, Carlton South, Victoria, Australia
If a package was sent here from say Germany, the first thing
that their post office looks at is the country.
Once its sent to Australia, it is then forwarded to Victoria.
Once the package arrives in Victoria, it is forwarded on to the
Carlton Post office
Once there its is delivered to the address
Delivering an IP packet would work much the same
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SENDING
INFORMATION
A PC wants to send information to a web server
First the PC will look around its local area, if it cannot find
what it is looking for, then it will pass the request to the
router.
The router will then look at its routing table for a
corresponding network address that matches the request.
If found, the router will pass the information through the
WAN until it finds the router with the server.
The router with the server will then read the host portion of
the packet and forward the request to the web server directly.