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Understanding Tcp/Ip Addressing and Subnetting Basics

TCP/IP addresses are 32-bit numbers that identify devices on a network. An IP address contains both a network and host portion, but these are not fixed. A subnet mask is used to determine which bits identify the network and which identify the specific host. The subnet mask for the example IP address of 192.168.123.132 is 255.255.255.0, which divides the address into a network portion of 192.168.123.0 and a host portion of 0.0.0.132. Routers use the network portion of IP addresses to deliver packets between networks until reaching the destination host.

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125 views8 pages

Understanding Tcp/Ip Addressing and Subnetting Basics

TCP/IP addresses are 32-bit numbers that identify devices on a network. An IP address contains both a network and host portion, but these are not fixed. A subnet mask is used to determine which bits identify the network and which identify the specific host. The subnet mask for the example IP address of 192.168.123.132 is 255.255.255.0, which divides the address into a network portion of 192.168.123.0 and a host portion of 0.0.0.132. Routers use the network portion of IP addresses to deliver packets between networks until reaching the destination host.

Uploaded by

Monday Verdejo
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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UNDERSTANDING

TCP/IP ADDRESSING
AND SUBNETTING
BASICS
• TCP/IP stands for Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, which is a set of
networking protocols that allows two or more
computers to communicate. The Defense
Data Network, part of the Department of Defense,
developed TCP/IP, and it has been widely
adopted as a networking standard.
INTRODUCTION
When you configure the TCP/IP protocol on a Microsoft Windows
computer, an IP address, subnet mask, and usually a default
gateway are required in the TCP/IP configuration settings.

To configure TCP/IP correctly, it is necessary to understand how


TCP/IP networks are addressed and divided into networks and
subnetworks. This article is intended as a general introduction to
the concepts of IP networks and subnetting.
• The success of TCP/IP as the network protocol of the Internet is largely
because of its ability to connect together networks of different sizes and
systems of different types. These networks are arbitrarily defined into
three main classes (along with a few others) that have predefined sizes,
each of which can be divided into smaller subnetworks by system
administrators. A subnet mask is used to divide an IP address into two
parts. One part identifies the host (computer), the other part identifies
the network to which it belongs. To better understand how IP addresses
and subnet masks work, look at an IP (Internet Protocol) address and
see how it is organized.
IP ADDRESSES: NETWORKS AND HOSTS
• An IP address is a 32-bit number that uniquely identifies a host (computer or other
device, such as a printer or router) on a TCP/IP network.

IP addresses are normally expressed in dotted-decimal format, with four numbers


separated by periods, such as 192.168.123.132. To understand how subnet masks
are used to distinguish between hosts, networks, and subnetworks, examine an IP
address in binary notation.

For example, the dotted-decimal IP address 192.168.123.132 is (in binary notation)


the 32 bit number 110000000101000111101110000100. This number may be
hard to make sense of, so divide it into four parts of eight binary digits.
• Theseeight bit sections are known as octets. The example IP address, then,
becomes 11000000.10101000.01111011.10000100. This number only
makes a little more sense, so for most uses, convert the binary address into
dotted-decimal format (192.168.123.132). The decimal numbers separated
by periods are the octets converted from binary to decimal notation.
• For a TCP/IP wide area network (WAN) to work efficiently as a collection of
networks, the routers that pass packets of data between networks do not
know the exact location of a host for which a packet of information is
destined. Routers only know what network the host is a member of and use
information stored in their route table to determine how to get the packet to
the destination host's network. After the packet is delivered to the
destination's network, the packet is delivered to the appropriate host.
For this process to work, an IP address has two parts. The first part
of an IP address is used as a network address, the last part as a
host address. If you take the example 192.168.123.132 and divide
it into these two parts you get the following:
192.168.123. Network .132 Host
or
192.168.123.0 - network address. 0.0.0.132 - host
address.
SUBNET MASK
The second item, which is required for TCP/IP to work, is the subnet mask. The
subnet mask is used by the TCP/IP protocol to determine whether a host is on
the local subnet
In TCP/IP, the parts of the IP address that are used as the network and host
addresses are not fixed, so the network and host addresses above cannot be
determined unless you have more information. This information is supplied in
another 32-bit number called a subnet mask. In this example, the subnet mask is
255.255.255.0. It is not obvious what this number means unless you know that
255 in binary notation equals 11111111; so, the subnet mask is: or on a remote
network.
11111111.11111111.11111111.0000000

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