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IP addresses are assigned to a host either dynamically as they join the network, or persistently by configuration of the host hardware or software. Persistent configuration is also known as using a static IP address. In contrast, when a computer's IP address is assigned each time it restarts, this is known as using a dynamic IP address.
Some large / 8 blocks of IPv4 addresses, the former Class A network blocks, are assigned in whole to single organizations or related groups of organizations, either by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), or a regional Internet registry.
Structured addresses allow a single routing table entry to represent the route to a group of devices. In large networks, the structured addressing used by routers outperforms unstructured addressing used by bridging. Structured IP addresses are used on the Internet.
The addresses are configured either manually by an administrator, automatically at startup by means of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), or by stateless address autoconfiguration methods. Network hosts that participate in applications that use the client–server model of computing are classified as server or client systems.
IP addresses are described as consisting of two groups of bits in the address: the most significant bits are the network prefix, which identifies a whole network or subnet, and the least significant set forms the host identifier, which specifies a particular interface of a host on that network. This division is used as the basis of traffic ...
The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) performs this IP-address-to-hardware-address translation for IPv4. In addition, the reverse correlation is often necessary. For example, unless an address is preconfigured by an administrator, when an IP host is booted or connected to a network it needs to determine its IP address.
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Today, IP addresses are associated with a subnet mask. This was not required in a classful network because the mask was implied by the address itself; any network device would inspect the first few bits of the IP address to determine the class of the address and thus its netmask.