Classful IP addressing is an IPv4 addressing architecture that is

divided into five classes as follows:

 Class A
 Class B
 Class C
 Class D
 Class E

Components of IP Address
There are two components to an IP address:

 Network ID: This identifies how many networks there are.

 Host ID: This identifies how many hosts there are.
The classful addressing resulted in a tremendous waste of address space. In the early days of the
Internet, organizations were assigned an entire classful network address from the A, B, or C class.

Class D

Class D has IP address range from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255.

A multicast address is a logical identifier for a group of hosts in a computer network that are
available to process datagrams or frames intended to be multicast for a designated network
service. Multicast addressing can be used in the link layer (layer 2 in the OSI model), such
as Ethernet multicast, and at the internet layer (layer 3 for OSI) for Internet Protocol Version 4
(IPv4) or Version 6 (IPv6) multicast

Class E

Class E addresses occupy the range from 240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254, which

represents a significant portion of the IPv4 address space.
. Class E IPv4 addresses were originally set aside during the formative years
of the Internet for potential or experimental purposes. The rationale for
reserving this address space was to provide a buffer for research and
development, testing, and unforeseen future requirements. Consequently, in
contrast to Classes A, B, and C, which were designated for general use, Class
E addresses were restricted from public network applications.
These addresses were essentially reserved for the exploration of emerging
technologies, possible enhancements to the IPv4 protocol, and various
experimental applications that could develop. Nevertheless, because there
was no clearly articulated purpose for their use, they were not incorporated
into standard network operations, resulting in their limited accessibility for
typical users and businesses.

As illustrated in the figure:

 Class A had 50% of the total address space. However, only 126 organizations could be assigned a
class A network address. Ridiculously, each of these organizations could provide addresses for up
to 16 million hosts. Very large organizations were allocated entire class A address blocks. Some
companies and governmental organizations still have class A addresses. For example, General
Electric owns 3.0.0.0/8, Apple Computer owns 17.0.0.0/8, and the U.S. Postal Service owns
56.0.0.0/8.

 Class B had 25% of the total address space. Up to 16,384 organizations could be assigned a class
B network address and each of these networks could support up to 65,534 hosts. Only the largest
organizations and governments could ever hope to use all 65,000 addresses. Like class A networks,
many IP addresses in the class B address space were wasted.

 Class C had 12.5 % of the total address space. Many more organizations were able to get class C
networks, but were limited in the total number of hosts that they could connect. In fact, in many
cases, class C addresses were often too small for most midsize organizations.

 Classes D and E are used for multicasting and reserved addresses.

The overall result was that the classful addressing was a very wasteful addressing scheme. A better
network addressing solution had to be developed. For this reason, Classless Inter-Domain Routing
(CIDR) was introduced in 1993.

SUMMARY
Problems with Classful Addressing:
The problem with this classful addressing method is that millions of class A
address are wasted, many of the class B address are wasted, whereas,
number of addresses available in class C is so small that it cannot cater the
needs of organizations. Class D addresses are used for multicast routing and
are therefore available as a single block only. Class E addresses are
reserved.
Since there are these problems, Classful networking was replaced by
Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) in 1993.

Classless InterDomain Routing (CIDR) also called supernetting

Once upon a time when the IP addressing scheme was invented, the people who
developed this thought it would be enough to have 3 different classes as we have seen so
far, class A,B and C networks. There were only three subnet masks:

 Class A: 255.0.0.0 (16.777.216 addresses)

 Class B: 255.255.0.0 (65.536 addresses)
 Class C: 255.255.255.0 (256 addresses)

These networks are also known as classful networks.

When the internet started growing rapidly in the beginning of the 90’s this caused some
problems. Large companies received entire class A networks with millions of addresses.
Smaller companies could get a class B network with 65.536 addresses or class C networks
with 256 addresses. Many addresses were wasted so something had to be done.

The solution to this problem is classless interdomain routing, in other words we stop
working with the classful networks and start working with classless networks.

Classless networks means we don’t use the class A,B or C networks anymore but are free
to use any subnet mask we like. Also instead of writing down the subnet mask like
255.255.255.0 we often use a “bit” notation like /24. This represents the number of bits that
are used for the subnet mask.

For example:

 192.168.1.0 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 is the same thing as 192.168.1.0 /24.
 172.16.0.0 with subnet mask 255.255.0.0 is the same thing as 172.16.0.0 /16.
 10.0.0.0 with subnet mask 255.0.0.0 is the same thing as 10.0.0.0 /8.
Subnetting

As the name implies, subnetting is the process of dividing a single large network into multiple
small networks known as subnets. The primary purpose of subnetting is to help relieve network
congestion and improve efficiency in the utilization of the relatively small network address space
available especially in IPv4.

Supernetting

Supernetting is the direct opposite of subnetting, in which multiple networks are combined into a
single large network known as supernets. Supernetting provides route updates in the most
efficient way possible by advertising many routes in one advertisement instead of individually.

The main objective of supernetting is to simplify or summarize network routing decisions to

minimize processing overhead when matching routes, and storage space of route information on
routing tables. A routing table is a summary of all known networks. Routers share routing tables
to find the new path and locate the best path for the destination. Without Supernetting, the router
will share all routes from routing tables as they are. With Supernetting, it will summarize them
before sharing, which significantly reduces the size of routing updates.

There are two approaches to subnetting an IP address for a network: Fixed length subnet mask
(FLSM) and variable-length subnet mask (VLSM). In FLSM subnetting, all subnets are of equal
size with an equal number of host identifiers. You use the same subnet mask for each subnet, and
all the subnets have the same number of addresses in them. It tends to be the most wasteful
because it uses more IP addresses than are necessary.

VLSM is a subnet design strategy that allows all subnet masks to have variable sizes. In VLSM
subnetting, network administrators can divide an IP address space into subnets of different sizes,
and allocate it according to the individual need on a network. This type of subnetting makes
more efficient use of a given IP address range. VLSM is the defacto standard for how every
network is designed today. Table 2.0 below is a summary of the differences between FLSM and
VLSM Subnetting. VLSM is supported by the following protocols: Open Shortest Path First
(OSPF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Router Protocol (EIGRP), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP),
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) version 2 and 3, and Intermediate System-to-Intermediate
System (IS-IS). You need to configure your router for VLSM with one of those protocols.

FLSM (Fixed Length Subnet Masks) Subnetting VLSM (Variable Length Subnet Masks) Subnetti

Old-fashioned Modern
FLSM (Fixed Length Subnet Masks) Subnetting VLSM (Variable Length Subnet Masks) Subnetti

Subnets are equal in size Subnets are variable in size.

Subnets have an equal number of hosts Subnets have a variable number of hosts

Supports both classful and classless routing protocols Supports only classless routing protocols

Wastes more IP addresses Wastes fewer IP addresses

Subnets use the same subnet mask Subnets use different subnet masks

Simple configuration and administration

Complex configuration and administration