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An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as 192.0.2.1 that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. [1] [2] IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface identification, and location addressing.
This means that 256 /8 address blocks fit into the entire IPv4 space. As IPv4 address exhaustion has advanced to its final stages, some organizations, such as Stanford University , formerly using 36.0.0.0 / 8 , have returned their allocated blocks (in this case to APNIC ) to assist in the delay of the exhaustion date.
IP addresses in dot-decimal notation are also presented in CIDR notation, in which the IP address is suffixed with a slash and a number, used to specify the length of the associated routing prefix. For example, 127.0.0.1/8 specifies that the IP address has an eight-bit routing prefix, and therefore the subnet mask 255.0.0.0 .
While IPv4 uses 32 bits for addressing, yielding c. 4.3 billion (4.3 × 10 9) addresses, IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses providing c. 3.4 × 10 38 addresses. Although adoption of IPv6 has been slow, as of January 2023 [update] , most countries in the world show significant adoption of IPv6, [ 10 ] with over 41% of Google's traffic being carried ...
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) defines an IP address as a 32-bit number. [77] IPv4 is the initial version used on the first generation of the Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed in 1981 to address up to ≈4.3 billion (10 9) hosts.
In the original design of IPv4, an IP address was divided into two parts: the network identifier was the most significant octet of the address, and the host identifier was the rest of the address. The latter was also called the rest field. This structure permitted a maximum of 256 network identifiers, which was quickly found to be inadequate.
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Network diagram with IP network addresses indicated e.g. 192.168.100.3.. A network address is an identifier for a node or host on a telecommunications network.Network addresses are designed to be unique identifiers across the network, although some networks allow for local, private addresses, or locally administered addresses that may not be unique. [1]