TERM PAPER 1

CS -602
(Computer Networks)
Under Guidance of
Prof. XXXX

NAME: XXXXXXX
DEPT: CSE
COLLEGE ROLL NO: XX
UNIVERSITY ROLL NO: XXXXXXXXX
UNIVERSITY REG. NO: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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 Topic: Ipv4 – A logical addressing Scheme in networking.
ABSTRACT
The Internet Protocol version 4 was designed to be allocated to approx. imately 4.3 billion
addresses. At the beginning of Internet this was considered a much wider address space for
which there was nothing to worry about.
The sudden growth in internet users and its wide spread use has exponentially increased the
number of devices which needs real and unique IP to be able to communicate. Gradually, an
IPS is required by almost every digital equipment which were made to ease human life, such
as Mobile Phones, Cars and other electronic devices. The number of devices (other than
computers/routers) expanded the demand for extra IP addresses, which were not considered
earlier.
INTRODUCTION
The identifier used in the IP layer of the TCP/IP protocol suite to identify the connection of
each device to the Internet is called the Internet address or IP address. An IPv4 address is a
32-bit address that uniquely and universally defines the connection of a host or a router to the
Internet.
An Internet Protocol address or IP address is a unique identifier given to every machine in a
network. An IP address serves two primary functions. It is used as an interface identification
for a network of machines and it also serves to provide a location of that machine, much like
a physical address for a home or business. Because an IP address is a unique identifier, it
allows computers to send and receive information to and from specific computers in a given
network.
IPv4
The IPv4 address is a 32-bit number that uniquely identifies a network interface on a
machine. An IPv4 address is typically written in decimal digits, formatted as four 8-bit fields
that are separated by periods. Each 8-bit field represents a byte of the IPv4 address. This form
of representing the bytes of an IPv4 address is often referred to as the dotted-decimal format.
The bytes of the IPv4 address are further classified into two parts: the network part and the
host part. The following figure shows the component parts of a typical IPv4 address,
129.144.50.56.
Fig: Parts of an IPv4 Address.

Classful Addressing
The 32 bit IP address is divided into five sub-classes. These are: Class A, Class B, Class C,
Class D, Class E

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Each of these classes has a valid range of IP addresses. Classes D and E are reserved for
multicast and experimental purposes respectively. The order of bits in the first octet
determines the classes of IP address.
IPv4 address is divided into two parts:
 Network ID
 Host ID

Types of networks and corresponding IP addresses:

Depending on the size of the network, IP-based networks are divided into three classes.
� Class A- Class A networks are mega monster networks with up to 224 nodes 16 million
plus. Class A networks have their network addresses from 1.0.0.0 to 126.0.0.0, with the zero's
being replaced by node addresses.
� Class B- Class B networks are smaller networks in comparison they can have only about
65,000 nodes! Network addresses for these ranges from 128.0.0.0 to 191.0.0.0. Here the last
two zeros get replaced by the node addresses.
� Class C- These are the baby networks that can have only 254 nodes at the maximum. The
network IP addresses for these range from 192.0.0.0 to 223.0.0.0.
� Class D- Class D has IP address range from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. Class D is
reserved for Multicasting. In multicasting data is not destined for a particular host, that is why
there is no need to extract host address from the IP address, and Class D does not have any
subnet mask.
� Class E- This IP Class is reserved for experimental purposes only for R&D or Study. IP
addresses in this class ranges from 240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254. Like Class D, this class too
is not equipped with any subnet mask.

Classless Addressing
To reduce the wastage of IP addresses in a block, we use sub-netting. What we do is that we
use host id bits as net id bits of a classful IP address. We give the IP address and define the
number of bits for mask along with it (usually followed by a ‘/’ symbol), like,
192.168.1.1/28. Here, subnet mask is found by putting the given number of bits out of 32 as

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1, like, in the given address, we need to put 28 out of 32 bits as 1 and the rest as 0, and so, the
subnet mask would be 255.255.255.240.
Subnetting
Each IP class is equipped with its own default subnet mask which bounds that IP class to
have prefixed number of Networks and prefixed number of Hosts per network. Classful IP
addressing does not provide any flexibility of having less number of Hosts per Network or
more Networks per IP Class.
Class A Subnets: In Class A, only the first octet is used as Network identifier and rest
of three octets are used to be assigned to Hosts (i.e. 16777214 Hosts per Network). To make
more subnet in Class A, bits from Host part are borrowed and the subnet mask is changed
accordingly.
For example, if one MSB (Most Significant Bit) is borrowed from host bits of second octet
and added to Network address, it creates two Subnets (21=2) with (223-2) 8388606 Hosts per
Subnet.
Class B Subnets: By default, using Classful Networking, 14 bits are used as Network
bits providing (214) 16384 Networks and (216-2) 65534 Hosts. Class B IP Addresses can be
subnetted the same way as Class A addresses, by borrowing bits from Host bits.
Class C Subnets: Class C IP addresses are normally assigned to a very small size
network because it can only have 254 hosts in a network.
Supernetting
Supernetting is the opposite of Subnetting. In subnetting, a single big network is divided into
multiple smaller subnetworks. In Supernetting, multiple networks are combined into a bigger
network termed as a Supernetwork or Supernet.
Supernetting is mainly used in Route Summarization, where routes to multiple networks with
similar network prefixes are combined into a single routing entry, with the routing entry
pointing to a Super network, encompassing all the networks. This in turn significantly
reduces the size of routing tables and also the size of routing updates exchanged by routing
protocols.

Pros of IPv4
The Internet Protocol version 4 (or the IPv4 for short) was a revolutionary update that used
32-bit addressing scheme to generate 4 billion unique addresses. Here are a few of its
defining features:
 Simple Topology Drawings: IPv4 protocols have simple prefixes. This essentially
means that they can easily fit on all the topology drawings when we decide to opt for
IPv4. On the other hand, IPv6 protocols have insanely complicated prefixes, which
make it difficult to fit them on most topology drawings.

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  System Support: The best thing about IPv4 protocols is that all systems have no
problem handling IPv4 routing. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for IPv6
addresses as although most computers won’t have a problem with handling IPv6
routing, there’s a significant portion that will.

Cons of IPv4
 Limited address space: The most visible and urgent problem with using IPv4 on the
modern Internet is the rapid depletion of public addresses. This limited address space
has forced the wide deployment of network address translators (NATs), which can
share one public IPv4 address among several privately addressed computers. NATs
have the side effect of acting as a barrier for server, listener, and peer-to-peer
applications running on computers that are located behind the NAT.
 Configuration: IPv4 must be configured, either manually or through the Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). DHCP allows IPv4 configuration
administration to scale to large networks, but you must also configure and manage a
DHCP infrastructure.

CONCLUSION
Allocation of IPv4 is globally managed by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
under coordination with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN). IANA works closely with Regional Internet Registries, which in turns are
responsible for efficiently distributing IP addresses in their territories.To cope up with the
situation, the following practices were being done:
 Private IPs: Few blocks of IPs were declared for private use within a LAN so that the
requirement for public IP addresses can be reduced.
 NAT: Network address translation is a mechanism by which multiple PCs/hosts with
private IP addresses are enabled to access using one or few public IP addresses.

REFERENCES:

Books:
1. Data Communications & Networking - Forouzan Behrouz A, TMH
2. W Stallings: Data and Computer Communications, PHI/Pearson
Websites:
1. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/28328/subnetting
2. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/ipv4/ipv4_subnetting
3. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/ipv4/ipv4_address_classes
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_address
5. https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.3.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r3
.hald001/ipversion4
6. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/5367/internet-protocol-version-4-ipv4