In Computer Networking understand the IP or Internet Protocol Address is crucial. If you are a Backend Developer or DevOps Engineer this is essential topic to understand.
Internet Protocol
IP Address is a set of unique numbers assigned to each network device such as Compute, Tablet, Mobile in order to identify that device. For example, 123.89.46.72 this is an IP Address.
There are two kinds of IP address available,
- IPv4
- IPv6
In this post we will learn about IPv4 address.
IPv4 Address
This is the version four of Internet Protocol. IPv4 is a 32 bits or 4 bytes address integer which generally expressed in Decimal Notation.
123.89.46.72 this is an IPv4 IP Address.
In here the range of each segment must be in between 0 to 255.
IPv4 has Public & Private IP.
Classes of IPv4
| Class | First Octet Value | Public IP Range |
| A | 1 to 127 | 1.0.0.0 to 127.0.0.0 |
| B | 128 to 191 | 128.0.0.0 to 191.255.0.0 |
| C | 192 to 223 | 192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.0 |
| D | 224 to 239 | 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 |
| E | 240 to 255 | 240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 |
These are the Classes for IPv4.
Class A: Class A IP addresses are for networks with large number of total hosts communicating with each other.
Class B: Class B IP addresses are for medium to large sized number of hosts.
Class C: Class C IP addresses are used in small local area networks (LANs).
Class D: Class D IP addresses are used for multicasting. Multicasting allows a single host to send a single stream of data to thousands of hosts across the Internet at the same time. It is often used for audio and video streaming.
Class E: Class E IP addresses are used for Research purposes.
Note that, the IP starts with 127 is called Loopback Address. The purpose if it is to test TCP/IP configuration of a host.
Parts of IPv4
Network Part
The network part indicates the unique number that is assigned to your network. The network part also identifies the class of network that is assigned.
Since our IP starts with 123.89 so we can say the class for it is Class A. Remember that Class A has only one Network Part.
Like that Class B has two Network Parts and two Host Parts. Class C has three Network Parts and one Host Part.
Host Part
The Host part uniquely identifies this machine on your network.
This is a summary of IPv4.