CCNA Certication/Addressing

1.2 Class B Network

Each IP host or node on a network is identied by an IP

address. The IP address is a network layer address and
has relationship to data link layer address (such as a MAC
address of a network interface card). An IP address is
a 32 bit binary number. Usually this number is represented by 4 decimal values in the range 0 to 255 (known
as octets) separated by decimal points. This is known as
dotted decimal notation.

In a Class B Network, binary addresses start with 10,

therefore the decimal number can be anywhere from 128
to 191. The rst 16 bits (the rst two octets) identify the
network and the remaining 16 bits indicate the host within
the network.

Here is the IP address in its binary form:

216 .109 .112 .135
11011000.01101101.01110000.10000111

128.0.X.X
10000000.00000000.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX
to
191.255.X.X
10111111.11111111.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX

So for example The number 216 can be expressed as:

128 + 64 + 16 + 8

1.3 Class C Network

Example: 216.109.112.135

In a Class C Network, binary addresses start with 110,

therefore the decimal number can be anywhere from 192
to 223. The rst 24 bits (the rst three octets) identify the
network and the remaining 8 bits indicate the host within
the network.

Classful routing

192.0.0.X
11000000.00000000.00000000.XXXXXXXX
to
223.255.255.X
11011111.11111111.11111111.XXXXXXXX

Every IP address consists of two parts, one identifying

the network (Network Number) and one identifying the
node (Node Number).[1] The Class of the address and the
subnet mask determine which part belongs to the network
address and which part belongs to the node address.
In classful routing, the remainder of the IP address is the
Host ID. There are two special values: all zeros = network
id all ones = broadcast id

1.1

1.4 Class D Network

In a Class D Network, binary addresses start with 1110,
therefore the decimal number can be anywhere from 224
to 239. Class D networks are used to support multicasting.

Class A Network

In a Class A Network, binary address start with 0, therefore the decimal number can be anywhere from 1 to 126. 224.0.0.X
The rst 8 bits identify the network and the remaining 24 11100000.00000000.00000000.XXXXXXXX
to
bits indicate the host within the network.
239.255.255.X
1 .X .X .X
11101111.11111111.11111111.XXXXXXXX
00000001.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX
to
126 .X .X .X
01111110.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX 1.5 Class E Network

In a Class E Network, binary addresses start with 1111,

therefore the decimal number can be anywhere from 240
to 255. Class E networks are reserved.

127.X.X.X - is reserved for loopback

01111111.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXX

240.0.0.X
11110000.00000000.00000000.XXXXXXXX
to
255.255.255.X
11111111.11111111.11111111.XXXXXXXX

Number of Networks and Hosts

The number of valid networks and hosts available is always 2N - 2 (where N is the number of bits used, and the
2 adjusts for the invalidity of the rst and last addresses).
Thus, for a class C address with 8 bits available for hosts,
the number of hosts is 254.

SUBNETTING

Internet routing table, and reverses the process of

subnetting a subnet with VLSM.

The administrative process of allocating address

blocks to organizations based on their actual and
short-term projected need, rather than the very large
or very small blocks required by classful addressing
schemes.

4 Subnetting

The larger network number eld allowed a larger numIn computer networks, a subnetwork or subnet is a range
ber of networks, thereby accommodating the continued
of logical addresses within the address space that is asgrowth of the Internet.
signed to an organization. Subnetting is a hierarchical
The IP address netmask (which is so commonly associ- partitioning of the network address space of an organizaated with an IP address today) was not required because tion (and of the network nodes of an autonomous system
the mask length was part of the IP address itself. Any into several subnets. Routers constitute borders between
network device could inspect the rst few bits of a 32-bit subnets. Communication to and from a subnet is mediIP address to see which class the address belonged to.
ated by one specic port of one specic router, at least
The method of comparing two IP addresss physical net- momentarily.
works did not change, however (see subnetwork). For
each address, the network number eld size and its subsequent value were determined (the rest eld was ignored). The network numbers were then compared. If
they matched, then the two addresses were on the same
network.

Classless Routing

A typical subnet is a physical network served by one

router, for instance an Ethernet network (consisting of
one or several Ethernet segments or local area networks,
interconnected by switches and bridges) or a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN). However, subnetting allows
the network to be logically divided regardless of the physical layout of a network, since it is possible to divide a
physical network into several subnets by conguring different host computers to use dierent routers.

The address to all nodes in a subnet starts with the same

Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR, pronounced binary sequence, which is its network id and subnet id.
cider) was introduced in 1993 and is the latest rene- In IPv4, the subnet may be identied by its base address
ment to the way IP addresses are interpreted. It replaced and subnet mask.
the previous generation of IP address syntax, classful net- Subnetting simplies routing, since each subnet typically
works. Specically, rather than allocating address blocks is represented by one row in the routing tables in each
on eight-bit (i.e., octet) boundaries forcing 8, 16, or 24-bit connected router.
prexes, it used the technique of variable-length subnet
masking (VLSM) to allow allocation on arbitrary-length Subnetting was originally introduced before the introduction of classful network addresses in IPv4, to allow a sinprexes. CIDR encompasses:
gle larger network to have a number of smaller networks
within it, controlled by several routers. Subnetting made
The VLSM technique of specifying arbitrary length Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) possible.
prex boundaries. A CIDR-compliant address is
written with a sux indicating the number of bits in In order for computers to communicate on one network,
the prex length, such as 192.168.0.0/16. This per- they will all need their own IP address. However, if you
mits more ecient use of increasingly scarce IPv4 have two or more networks, instead of purchasing different numbers for each network, subnetting provides the
addresses.
ability to easily divide one IP address range amongst all
The aggregation of multiple contiguous prexes the hosts in your network. Subnetting is used in IP netinto supernets, and, wherever possible in the Inter- works to break up larger networks into a smaller network.
net, advertising aggregates, thus reducing the num- Subnetting involves manually calculating the bits of an IP
ber of entries in the global routing table. Aggre- address and taking them from the host side of bits and
gation hides multiple levels of subnetting from the adding them to the network side.

Network address and logical address

three classful network classes of IP address which determine how much is which

The 127.0.0.1 network is left out because it is designated

The term network address sometimes refers to logical for loopback and cannot be assigned to a network
address, i.e. network layer address such as the IP address, Class D multicasting
and sometimes to the rst address (the base address) of a
Class E reserved
classful address range to an organization.
Subnetting is the process of allocating bits from the host
Computers and devices that are part of internetworking
portion as a network portion. The above example shows
network such as the Internet all have a logical address.
the bitwise AND process being performed on a classful
The network address is unique to that device and can einetwork. The following example shows bits being borther be dynamically or statically congured. This address
rowed to turn a classful network into a subnet.
allows the device to communicate with other devices connected to the network. The most common network ad- Example
dressing scheme is IPv4. The IPv4 network address con- In this example two bits were borrowed from the original
sists of a 32 bit address divided into 4 octets and a subnet host portion. This is benecial because it allows a single
mask of like size. In order to facilitate the routing process network portion to be split into several smaller network
the address is divided into two pieces, the network ad- portions. By design IPv4 address are limited in number
dress and the host address. This works much like a postal and each classful network portion is capable of supporting
address where the network address would represent the a nite number of hosts. A classful C address for examcity and the host address would represent the street ad- ple has space for 254 hosts. If a network were to be split
dress. The subnet mask is used in conjunction with the into four parts using classful address four dierent class C
network address to determine which part of the address addresses would have to be used to serve those networks.
is the network address and which part is the host address. Using the subnetting example above if each subnetwork

Binary subnet masks

were to have 62 hosts or less (see below for math) a single class C address could be split up to service the entire
network while wasting the fewest host addresses.

While subnet masks are often represented in dot-decimal

form their use becomes clearer in binary. Looking at a
network address and a subnet mask in binary a device 7 Subnets and host count
can determine which part of the address is the network
address and which part is the host address. To do this, it It is possible to determine the number of hosts and subperforms a bitwise "AND" operation.
networks available for any subnet mask. In the above
example two bits were borrowed to create subnetworks.
Example
Each bit can take the value 1 or 0, giving 4 possible subSubnet masks consist of a series of 1s in binary followed nets ( 22 = 4 )
by 0s. The 1s designate that part of the address as being part of the network portion and the 0s designate that According to the RFC 950 standard the subnet values
part as being part of the host address. Subnet masks do consisting of all zeros and all ones are reserved, reducing
not have to ll a given octet. This allows a classful net- the number of available subnets by 2. However due to
work to be broken down into subnets. A classful net- the ineciencies introduced by this convention it is genwork is a network that has a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0, erally no longer used and is only relevant when dealing
255.255.0.0 or 255.255.255.0. Subnet masks can also with some legacy equipment.
be expressed in a shorter form, known as Classless Inter- The remaining bits after the subnet are used for addressDomain Routing (CIDR) notation, which gives the net- ing hosts within the subnet. In the above example the
work number followed by a slash ("/") and the number subnet mask consists of 26 bits, leaving 6 bits for the adof 'one' bits in the binary notation of the netmask (i.e. dress ( 32 26 ). This allows for 64 possible combinathe number of relevant bits in the network number). For tions ( 26 ), however the all zeros value and all ones value
example, 192.0.2.96/24 indicates an IP address where are reserved for the network ID and broadcast address
the rst 24 bits are used as network address (same as respectively, leaving 62 addresses.
255.255.255.0).
In general the number of available hosts on a subnet can
be calculated using the formula 2n 2 , where n is the
number of bits used for the host portion of the address.

6.1

IPv4 classes

RFC 3021 species an exception to this rule when dealing

IPv4 addresses are broken down into three parts: the net- with 31 bit subnet masks (i.e. 1 host bit). According to
work part, the subnet part, and the host part. There are the above rule a 31 bit mask would allow for 21 2 = 0

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hosts. The RFC makes allowances in this case for certain

types of networks (point-to-point) to disregard the network and broadcast address, allowing two host addresses
to be allocated.
Possible subnets for a Class C network:
* only applicable on point-to-point links

CIDR notation

References

[1] RFC 791 - Internet Protocol Specication. http://www.

ietf.org/rfc/rfc0791.txt.

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External links

EXTERNAL LINKS

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11.1

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