IP Addressing

Introductory material.

An entire module devoted to IP addresses.

Pedro Brandão (PhD)

University of Évora
IP Addresses

• Structure of an IP address
• Subnetting
• CIDR
• IP Version 6 addresses
IP Addresses

32 bits
version header Type of Service/TOS Total Length (in bytes)
(4 bits) length (8 bits) (16 bits)
flags
Identification (16 bits) Fragment Offset (13 bits)
(3 bits)
TTL Time-to-Live Protocol
Header Checksum (16 bits)
(8 bits) (8 bits)

Source IP address (32 bits)

Destination IP address (32 bits)

What is an IP Address?

• An IP address is a unique global address for a network

interface

• An IP address:
- is a 32 bit long identifier
- encodes a network number (network prefix)
and a host number
Dotted Decimal Notation

• IP addresses are written in a so-called dotted decimal

notation
• Each byte is identified by a decimal number in the range
[0..255]:

• Example:
10000000 10001111 10001001 10010000
1st Byte 2nd Byte 3rd Byte 4th Byte
= 128 = 143 = 137 = 144

128.143.137.144
Network prefix and Host number

• The network prefix identifies a network and the host number

identifies a specific host (actually, interface on the network).

network prefix host number

• How do we know how long the network prefix is?

– The network prefix used to be implicitly defined (class-
based addressing, A,B,C,D…)
– The network prefix now is flexible and is indicated by a
prefix/netmask (classless).
Example

Example: argon.cs.virginia.edu
•IP address is 128.143.137.144
– Is that enough info to route datagram??? -> No, need netmask or
prefix at every IP device (host and router)
•Using Prefix notation IP address is: 128.143.137.144/16
– Network prefix is 16 bits long

•Network mask is: 255.255.0.0 or hex format: ffff0000

-----> Network id (IP address AND Netmask) is: 128.143.0.0
-----> Host number (IP address AND inverse of Netmask) is: 137.144

128.143 137.144
Subnetting

• Problem: Organizations
have multiple networks
University Network
which are independently
managed Engineering Medical
– Solution 1: Allocate an School School
address for each network
• Difficult to manage
• From the outside of the Library
organization, each
network must be
addressable ie have an
identifiable address.
– Solution 2: Add another
level of hierarchy to the
IP addressing structure Subnetting
Basic Idea of Subnetting

• Split the host number portion of an IP address into a

subnet number and a (smaller) host number.
• Result is a 3-layer hierarchy

network prefix host number

network prefix subnet number host number

extended network prefix

• Then:
• Subnets can be freely assigned within the organization
• Internally, subnets are treated as separate networks
• Subnet structure is not visible outside the organization
Example of a Subnetting Plan

Subnet 128.49.0.12/24
Internet
Subnet 1
34=00100010

Subnet 128.49.1.34/25
Subnet 3
Router
R
Subnet 128.49.1.132/25
Subnet 4 132=10000100
Subnetwork: 128.49.1.0/24
Subnet 2
Subnet 128.49.3.72/24
2 bytes available for subnetting

IP Network: 128.49.0.0/16
Advantages of Subnetting

• With subnetting, IP addresses use a 3-layer hierarchy:

» Network
» Subnet
» Host
• Improves efficiency of IP addresses by not consuming an
entire address space for each physical network.
• Reduces router complexity. Since external routers do not
know about subnetting, the complexity of routing tables at
external routers is reduced.

• Note: Length of the subnet mask need not be identical at all

subnetworks.
Subnetting Example: Argon
Network without subnets

128.143.0.0/16
Same Network with Subnets
Same network with different subnetmasks

128.143.137.0
Subnet
Subnetting Example

• An organization with 4 departements has the following IP

address space: 10.2.22.0/23. As the systems manager, you
are required to create subnets to accommodate the IT needs
of 4 departments. The subnets have to support to 200, 61, 55,
and 41 hosts respectively. What are the 4 subnet network
numbers?

• Solution:
– 10.2.22.0/24 (256 addresses > 200)
– 10.2.23.0/26 (64 addresses >61)
– 10.2.23.64/26 (64 addresses > 55)
– 10.2.23.128/26 (64 addresses > 41)
CIDR - Classless Interdomain Routing
• Goals:
– Restructure IP address assignments to increase efficiency
– Hierarchical routing aggregation to minimize route table
entries

Key Concept: The length of the network id (prefix) in IP

addresses is arbitrary/flexible and is defined by the network
hierarchy.

• Consequence:
– Routers use the IP address and the length of the prefix for
forwarding.
– All advertised IP addresses must include a prefix
CIDR Example

• CIDR notation of a network address:

192.0.2.0/18
• "18" says that the first 18 bits are the network part of the
address
• The network part is called the network prefix
• Example:
– Assume that a site requires an IP network domain that can support
1000 IP host addresses
– With CIDR, the network is assigned a continuous block of 1024 = 210
(>1000) addresses with a 32-10 = 22-bit long prefix
CIDR: Prefix Size vs. Host Space

CIDR Block Prefix # of Host Addresses

/27 32 hosts
/26 64 hosts
/25 128 hosts
/24 256 hosts
/23 512 hosts
/22 1,024 hosts
/21 2,048 hosts
/20 4,096 hosts
/19 8,192 hosts
/18 16,384 hosts
/17 32,768 hosts
/16 65,536 hosts
/15 131,072 hosts
/14 262,144 hosts
/13 524,288 hosts
CIDR and Address assignments

• Backbone ISPs obtain large blocks of IP address space and

then reallocate portions of their address blocks to their
customers.

Example:
• Assume that an ISP owns the address block 206.0.64.0/18,
which represents 16,384 (232-18=214) IP host addresses
• Suppose a client requires 800 host addresses
➢ 512=29<800<1024=210 -> 32-10 = 22,
➢ Assigning a /22 block, i.e., 206.0.68.0/22 -> gives a block
of 1,024 (210) IP addresses to client.
Subnetting and Classless Inter Domain
Routing (CIDR)

• Subnetting is done by allocating some of the leading bits of

the host number to indicate a subnet number.
 With subnetting, the network prefix and the subnet number
make up an extended network prefix.
 The extended prefix can be expressed in terms of a
subnetmask or, using CIDR notation, by adding the length
of the extended subnetmask after the IP address.
 For example, for Argon, the first byte of the host number (the
third byte of the IP address) is used to denote the subnet
number.
 128.143.0.0/16 is the IP address of the network (network
prefix /16),
 128.143.137.0/24 is the IP address of the subnet,
 128.143.137.144/32 is the IP address of the host, and
 255.255.255.0 is the subnetmask of the host (or subnet
prefix /24))
CIDR and Routing Information

Company X :
206.0.68.0/22
ISP X owns:
206.0.64.0/18
204.188.0.0/15
209.88.232.0/21
Internet
Backbone ISP y :
209.88.237.0/24

Organization z1 : Organization z2 :
209.88.237.192/26 209.88.237.0/26
CIDR and Routing Information
Backbone routers do not know
anything about Company X, ISP
Y, or Organizations Z1, Z2.
Company X :
206.0.68.0/22
ISP K does not know about ISP K owns:
Organizations Z1, Z2. ISP Y sends everything which matches
206.0.64.0/18
the prefix:
204.188.0.0/15
209.88.237.192/26
209.88.232.0/21 to Organizations Z1
Internet
ISP K sends everything which
209.88.237.0/26 to Organizations Z2
Backbone
matches the prefix: ISP Y :
206.0.68.0/22 to Company X,
209.88.237.0/24 to ISP Y 209.88.237.0/24

Backbone sends everything

which matches the prefixes
Organization Z1 : Organization Z2 :
206.0.64.0/18, 204.188.0.0/15,
209.88.232.0/21 to ISP K. 209.88.237.192/26 209.88.237.0/26
CIDR and Routing

• Aggregation of routing table entries:

– 128.143.0.0/16 and 128.142.0.0/16 can be represented as
128.142.0.0/15 at a router.
• 143 = 128.10001111.0.0 142 = 128.10001110.0.0
• Longest prefix match: Routing table lookup finds the routing
entry that matches the longest prefix
– Why???? Prefix Interface/outg
oing link

E.g., What is the outgoing interface for 128.143.128.0/17 interface #1

destination IP address: 128.143.137.0? 128.128.0.0/9 interface #2
128.0.0.0/4 interface #5

Routing table
IPv6 - IP Version 6

• IP Version 6
– Is the successor to the currently used IPv4
– Specification completed in 1994
– Makes improvements to IPv4 (no revolutionary changes)

• One (not the only !) feature of IPv6 is a significant increase in

size of the IP address to 128 bits (16 bytes)
• IPv6 will solve – for the foreseeable future – the
problems with IP addressing
IPv6 Header
IPv6 vs. IPv4: Address Comparison

• IPv4 has a maximum of

232  4 billion addresses
• IPv6 has a maximum of
2128 = (232)4  4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion
addresses
Notation of IPv6 addresses

• Convention: The 128-bit IPv6 address is written as eight 16-

bit integers (using hexadecimal digits for each integer)
CEDF:BP76:3245:4464:FACE:2E50:3025:DF12

• Short notation:
• Abbreviations of leading zeroes:
CEDF:BP76:0000:0000:009E:0000:3025:DF12
→ CEDF:BP76:0:0:9E :0:3025:DF12
• “:0000:0000” can be written as “::”
CEDF:BP76:0:0:FACE:0:3025:DF12 → CEDF:BP76::FACE:0:3025:DF12
• IPv6 addresses derived from IPv4 addresses have different formats.
Convention allows to use IPv4 notation for the last 32 bits.
128.143.137.144 -> 0:0:0:0:0:ffff:808F:8990 or
128.143.137.144 -> 2002:808f:8990:0:0:0:0:0 (called 6to4 address)
IPv6 Provider-Based Addresses

• The first IPv6 addresses will be allocated to a provider-based

plan

Registry Provider Subscriber Subnetwork Interface

010
ID ID ID ID ID

• Type: Set to “010” for provider-based addresses

• Registry: identifies the agency that registered the address
The following fields have a variable length (recommeded length in “()”)
• Provider: Id of Internet access provider (16 bits)
• Subscriber: Id of the organization at provider (24 bits)
• Subnetwork: Id of subnet within organization (32 bits)
• Interface: identifies an interface at a node (48 bits)
More on IPv6 Addresses

• The provider-based addresses have a similar flavor as CIDR

addresses

• IPv6 provides address formats for:

– Unicast – identifies a single interface
– Multicast – identifies a group. Datagrams sent to a
multicast address are sent to all members of the group
– Anycast – identifies a group. Datagrams sent to an anycast
address are sent to one of the members in the group.