International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT)

ISSN: 2249 – 8958, Volume-5, Issue-4, April 2016

Computer Network - IP Address & Subnetting

Rajesh Kumar, Pinky Ramchandra Shinde

Abstract: The next-generation Internet Protocol, initially known Printer) participating in a computer network that uses
as IP Next Generation (Ipng), and then later as IPv6, has been the Internet Protocol for communication. There are 5 classes of
developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to
IP address. “Class A” blocks (224 addresses, approximately
replace the current Internet Protocol (also known as IPv4). which
offers 2128 possible addresses To enable the integration of IPv6 16.7 million). “Class B” (216) and “C” blocks (28) were
into current networks, several transition mechanisms have been provided to smaller networks. Early network architecture
proposed by the IETF IPng Transition Working Group. This permitted only these three sizes.
work examines and empirically evaluates two transition
mechanisms, namely IPv6 to IPv4 tunneling and dual-stack A. Class AAddress
mechanism, as they relate to the performance of IPv6. The The first bit of the first octet is always set to 0 (zero). Thus
primary focus of this paper is to compare and analyze IPv4 and
the first octet ranges from 1 – 127, i.e.
IPv6 networks, study their characteristics and header formats.
The paper also attempts to outline the key deployment issues and
security-related challenges which are being faced and dealt with
during the migration process.
Keywords— IP address, Subnet, IPV4, IPV6, Multicast
Address, Unicast Address, 6-over-4, encapsulation, tunneling, Class A addresses only include IP starting from 1.x.x.x to
126.x.x.x only. The IP range 127.x.x.x is reserved for
loopback IP addresses. The default subnet mask for Class
I. INTRODUCTION
A IP address is 255.0.0.0 which implies that Class A
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical addressing can have 126 networks (27-2) and 16777214
label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) hosts (224-2).
participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Class A IP address format is thus:
Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two 0NNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH
principal functions: host or network
interface identification and location addressing. Its role has B. Class BAddress
been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we An IP address which belongs to class B has the first two
seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how bits in the first octet set to 10, i.e.
to get there."
The rapid explosion of the internet and existence of high
speed wireless and broadband networks have contributed
towards depletion of IPv4.The IPv4 protocol created more Class B IP Addresses range from 128.0.x.x to 191.255.x.x.
than three decades ago with approximately an address space The default subnet mask for Class B is 255.255.x.x.Class B
of 4 billion cannot cater to the needs of modern internet. The has 16384 (214) Network addresses and 65534 (2 16-2) Host
IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) allocated the addresses.
last chunk of IPv4 addresses on Feb 3, 2011 to the Regional Class B IP address format is:
Internet Registries announcing end of IPv4 addresses [1].
The address depletion has posed a serious problem on the 10NNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH
growth of internetworks. The short term solutions like C. Class CAddress
PPP/DHCP (address sharing), CIDR (classless inter-domain
The first octet of Class C IP address has its first 3 bits set to
routing) and NAT (network address translation) do not seem
110, that is:
to help considering the number of devices that are getting
connected to the internet daily. Also as the protocol was
developed long time back, the features related to mobility,
security and QoS (Quality of Service) are handled by
additional protocols which cannot be integrated within the Class C IP addresses range from 192.0.0.x to
protocol. 223.255.255.x. The default subnet mask for Class C is
255.255.255.x.Class C gives 2097152 (2 21) Network
II. IP ADDRESS addresses and 254 (28-2) Host addresses.
As we know that an Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a Class C IP address format is:
numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, 110NNNNN.NNNNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH

Revised Version Manuscript Received on May 02, 2016.

D. Class D Address
Rajesh Kumar, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science and Very first four bits of the first octet in Class D IP addresses
Engineering, Govt. Polytechnic College, Ujjain – 456001 (M.P.). India.
Ms. Pinky Ramchandra Shinde, Assistant Professor, Department of
are set to 1110, giving a range of:
Computer, New Horizon Institute of Management Studies, Sector -13,
Airoli, Navi Mumbai, India.

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 Computer Network - IP Address & Subnetting

IV. IPV6
Internet Protocol version 6 also known as IPng (IP next
generation) is the latest version of the IP for the Internet.
Class D has IP address rage from 224.0.0.0 to IPv6 comes with a 128 bit address scheme, enough to cover
239.255.255.255. Class D is reserved for Multicasting. In nearly every connected device on earth with a global
multicasting data is not destined for a particular host, that is unique address [4].IPv6 uses 128 bit addresses with an
why there is no need to extract host address from the IP address space of 2128 (approximately 3.4×1038) addresses.
address, and Class D does not have any subnet mask. Such a large address space allows for every device and user
E. Class E Address in the world to connect to the internet. It also eliminates the
use of NAT in IPv6 and improves connectivity, reliability
This IP Class is reserved for experimental purposes only for
and flexibility in the network. The design objectives of
R&D or Study. IP addresses in this class ranges from
IPv6 were to support larger address space, security in the
240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254. Like Class D, this class too
protocol and real time multimedia transmission. IPSec
is not equipped with any subnet mask.
support has become a mandatory requirement in IPv6
unlike in IPv4 where it was optional. Payload identification
III. IPV4
(used in QoS) has been replaced by Flow Label field in
Internet Protocol is one of the major protocols in the TCP/IP IPv6 packet.
protocols suite. This protocol works at the network layer of The concept of fragmentation has been removed. The
the checksum and options has been replaced by extension
OSI model and at the Internet layer of the TCP/IP model. headers in IPv6.Also IPv6 does not require manual
Thus this protocol has the responsibility of identifying hosts configuration or DHCP because the system participates in
3. THE TCP/IP MODEL Ipv4 6 based upon their logical “stateless” auto configuration which is one of the design
addresses and to route data among them over the underlying goals of IPv6.Finally the packet header size has also been
network. IP provides a mechanism to uniquely identify hosts changed from 20 byte in IPv4 to 40 byte in IPv6
by an IP addressing scheme. IP uses best effort delivery, i.e.
it does not guarantee that packets would be delivered to the V. TYPES OF IP ADDRESSES
destined host, but it will do its best to reach the destination. Internet Protocol (IP) addresses is usually of two types:
Internet Protocol version 4 uses 32-bit logical address. Public and Private.
Internet Protocol being a layer-3 protocol (OSI) takes data
A. Public IP Addresses
Segments from layer-4 (Transport) and divides it into
A computer on the Internet is identified by its IP address.
packets. IP packet encapsulates data unit received from
In order to avoid address conflicts, IP addresses are
above layer and add to its own header information.
publicly registered with the Network Information Centre
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of
(NIC) [5]. A public IP address is assigned to every
the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of
computer that connects to the Internet where each IP is
standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet, and
unique. In this case, there cannot exist two computers with
was the first version deployed for production in the
the same public IP address all over the Internet. This
ARPANET in 1983. It still routes most Internet traffic
addressing scheme makes it possible for the computers to
today,[1] despite the ongoing deployment of a successor
“find each other” online and exchange information. User
protocol, IPv6. IPv4 is described in IETF publication RFC
has no control over the public IP address that is assigned to
791 (September 1981), replacing an earlier definition (RFC
the computer. The public IP address is assigned to the
760, January 1980). IPv4 is a connectionless protocol for use
computer by the Internet Service Provider as soon as the
on packet-switched networks. It operates on a best effort
computer is connected to the Internet gateway. A public IP
delivery model, in that it does not guarantee delivery, nor
address can be either static or dynamic. A static public IP
does it assure proper sequencing or avoidance of duplicate
address does not change and is used primarily for hosting
delivery. These aspects, including data integrity, are
web pages or services on the Internet. On the other hand, a
addressed by an upper layer transport protocol, such as the
dynamic public IP address is chosen from a pool of
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). IPv4 uses 32- bit
available addresses and changes each time one connects to
(four-byte) addresses, which limits the address space to
the Internet. Most Internet users will only have a dynamic
4294967296 (232) addresses. This limitation stimulated the
IP assigned to their computer which goes off when the
development of IPv6 in the 1990s, which has been in
computer is disconnected from the Internet. Thus, when it
commercial deployment since 2006.Because of the demand
is reconnected it gets a new IP.
of the growing Internet, the small address space finally
suffered exhaustion on February 3, 2011, after having been B. Private IP Address
significantly delayed by classful network design, An IP address is considered private if the IP number falls
Classless Inter-Domain Routing, and network within one of the IP address ranges reserved for private
address translation (NAT). IPv4 reserves special address networks such as a Local Area Network (LAN). The
blocks for private networks (~18 million addresses) and Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved
multicast addresses (~270 million addresses). the following three blocks of the IP address space for
private networks (local networks): 10.0.0.0 –
10.255.255.255 (Total Addresses: 16,777,216) 172.16.0.0 –
172.31.255.255 (Total Addresses: 1,048,576) 192.168.0.0 –

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 International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT)
ISSN: 2249 – 8958, Volume-5, Issue-4, April 2016

192.168.255.255 (Total Addresses: 65,536) Private IP

addresses are used for numbering the computers in a
private network including home, school and business
LANs in airports and hotels which makes it possible for
the computers in the network to communicate with each
other. Say for example, if a network X consists of 10
computers, each of them can be given an IP starting from
192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10. Unlike the public IP, the
administrator of the private network is free to assign an
IP address of his own choice.

VI. SUBNETTING
Each IP class is equipped with its own default subnet mask
which bounds that IP class to have prefixed number of
Networks and prefixed number of Hosts per network.
Classful IP addressing does not provide any flexibility of
having a smaller number of Hosts per Network or more
Networks per IP Class. CIDR or Classless Inter Domain
Routing provides the flexibility of borrowing bits of Host
part of the IP address and using them as Network in
Network, called Subnet. By using subnetting, one single
Class A IP address can be used to have smaller sub-
networks which provides better network management
capabilities.
1. Class A Subnets
In Class A, only the first octet is used as Network identifier
2. Class B Subnets
and rest of three octets are used to be assigned to Hosts (i.e.
16777214 Hosts per Network). To make more subnet in By default, using Classful Networking, 14 bits are used as
Class A, bits from Host part are borrowed and the subnet Network bits providing (214) 16384 Networks and (216-2)
mask is changed accordingly. For example, if one MSB 65534 Hosts. Class B IP Addresses can be subnetted the same
(Most Significant Bit) is borrowed from host bits of second way as Class A addresses, by borrowing bits from
octet and added to Network address, it creates two Subnets Host bits. Below is given all possible combination of Class
(21=2) with (223-2) 8388606 Hosts per Subnet. The Subnet B subnetting:
mask is changed accordingly to reflect subnetting. Given
below is a list of all possible combination of Class A
subnets:

3. Class C Subnets
Class C IP addresses are normally assigned to a very small
size network because it can only have 254 hosts in a
network. Given below is a list of all possible combination of
subnetted Class B IP address:

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 Computer Network - IP Address & Subnetting
Allocate the next highest range, so let's assign 192.168.1.128
/26 (255.255.255.192) to the Purchase
department. This IP subnet with Network number
192.168.1.128 has 62 valid Host IP Addresses which can be
easily assigned to all the PCs of the Purchase department. The
subnet mask used has 11000000 in the last octet.
Step – 5
Allocate the next highest range, i.e. Accounts. The
requirement of 25 IPs can be fulfilled with 192.168.1.192
/27 (255.255.255.224) IP subnet, which contains 30 valid host
IPs. The network number of Accounts department will be
192.168.1.192. The last octet of subnet mask is 11100000.
Step – 6
Internet Service Providers may face a situation where they Allocate the next highest range to Management. The
need to allocate IP subnets of different sizes as per the Management department contains only 5 computers. The
requirement of customer. One customer may ask Class C subnet 192.168.1.224 /29 with the Mask 255.255.255.248 has
subnet of 3 IP addresses and another may ask for 10 IPs. exactly 6 valid host IP addresses. So this can be assigned to
For an ISP, it is not feasible to divide the IP addresses into Management. The last octet of the subnet mask will contain
fixed size subnets, rather he may want to subnet the 11111000.
subnets in such a way which results in minimum wastage By using VLSM, the administrator can subnet the IP subnet in
of IP addresses. such a way that least number of IP addresses are wasted. Even
For example, an administrator have 192.168.1.0/24 after assigning IPs to every department, the administrator, in
network. The suffix /24 (pronounced as "slash 24") tells this example, is still left with plenty of IP addresses which was
the number of bits used for network address. In this not possible if he has used CIDR.
example, the administrator has three different departments
with different number of hosts. Sales department has 100 VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
computers, Purchase department has 50 computers,
A major issue that has been ignored in this paper is security.
Accounts has 25 computers and Management has 5
We assumes that each node trusts every other node, but if this
computers. In CIDR, the subnets are of fixed size. Using
is
the same methodology, the administrator cannot fulfill all
Not the case then the following situations can arise:
the requirements of the network.
The following procedure shows how VLSM can be used ❖ node requests IP addresses for nodes that do not
in order to allocate department-wise IP addresses as exist. In this way a node can acquire all the IP addresses
mentioned in the example. denying others to participate in the network.
❖ A node assigns IP addresses to other nodes without
Step - 1 following the given protocol. This can lead to IP
Make a list of Subnets possible. address con_icts which might be dif_cult to resolve.
❖ A node selectively gives wrong information to other
nodes. The synchronization process in our protocol
depends on reliable broadcast. Since no such broadcast
exists in a mobile distributed environment, one can
question the robustness of the protocol.
Migration Process from IPv4 to IPv6 is been often compared
to the Y2K problem, demanding time and investment of
resources. Companies are yet to recognize IPv4 number
exhaustion as an alarming problem, and are not ready to put
off the investment required into the future. In the future
Step – 2 there may be risk of insufficient time and cost [10]. The cost
Sort the requirements of IPs in descending order (Highest to of migration to IPv6 could be a problem. Costs involved
Lowest). include renumbering networks and running two protocol
Sales 100
stacks (IPv4 and IPv6) at the same time, upgrade to relevant
Purchase 50
software and hardware, training the manpower, and testing
Accounts 25
network implementations. However IPv6 does provide
Management 5
considerable benefits and features required by the
Step – 3
modern secure internet. Given the number of problems in
Allocate the highest range of IPs to the highest requirement,
the current internetwork, migration process may be the
so let's assign 192.168.1.0 /25 (255.255.255.128) to the
only solution viable in the long run.
Sales department. This IP subnet with Network number
192.168.1.0 has 126 valid Host IP addresses which satisfy
the requirement of the Sales department. The subnet mask
used for this subnet has 10000000 as the last octet.
Step – 4

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 International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT)
ISSN: 2249 – 8958, Volume-5, Issue-4, April 2016

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