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The method divides the IP address space for Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) into five address classes based on the leading four address bits. Classes A, B, and C provide unicast addresses for networks of three different network sizes. Class D is for multicast networking and the class E address range is reserved for future or experimental ...
Used for link-local addresses [5] between two hosts on a single link when no IP address is otherwise specified, such as would have normally been retrieved from a DHCP server 172.16.0.0/12 172.16.0.0–172.31.255.255
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.
A public IP address is a globally routable unicast IP address, meaning that the address is not an address reserved for use in private networks, such as those reserved by RFC 1918, or the various IPv6 address formats of local scope or site-local scope, for example for link-local addressing. Public IP addresses may be used for communication ...
IP packets originating from or addressed to a private IP address cannot be routed through the public Internet. Private addresses are often seen as enhancing network security for the internal network since use of private addresses internally makes it difficult for an external host to initiate a connection to an internal system.
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.
The IPv6 address specification 2001:db8:: / 32 is a large address block with 2 96 addresses, having a 32-bit routing prefix. For IPv4, a network may also be characterized by its subnet mask or netmask , which is the bitmask that, when applied by a bitwise AND operation to any IP address in the network, yields the routing prefix.
Each IP address consists of a network prefix followed by a host identifier. In the classful network architecture of IPv4, the three most significant bits of the 32-bit IP address defined the size of the network prefix for unicast networking, and determined the network class A, B, or C. [3]