What Is IP Addressing?

IP address is a 32 bit compound number assigned to each computer for its unique identification. With the help of IP address, a computer can easily be identified among millions of other computers in thousands of networks. This addressing method is used by the IP protocol. The structure of IP address is like that it is 32 bit number but is expressed as single byte number ranging from 0 to 255, period sign is used for separation. For example, 167.34.45.21 is an IP address that uniquely identifies a computer on the network. Part of this address refers to the Host network and the rest represents the particular computer on the network.

The IP addresses are subdivided into classes and a class code is defined in the left most bit of the address.

Class A: In IP addresses of this class, first byte is used for Network Identification and the rest of the three bytes are used for the identification of the computers on that network. Class A network is for millions of connected machines. Class code is mentioned in the bit 0 of first byte.

Class B: In IP addresses of this class, first two byte is used for Network Identification and the rest of the bytes are used for the identification of the computers on that network. Class B network can have 256 * 256 = 65536 machines. Class code is mentioned in the bits 0, 1 of first byte.

Class C: In IP addresses of this class, first three byte is used for Network Identification and the one byte is used for the identification of the computers on that network. Class C network can have 256 machines. Class code is mentioned in the bits 0 -2 of first byte.

Multicast: All four bytes except for the class code is used to identify the network.