Ip Address Classes

Learning to identify the Classes in IP addresses

On an IP address, there is a part that shows who the host of the network is as well as the actual host. When you look at an IP address, it is very important for you to note these things as well as determine the class in which the IP address is in. in general there are three basically known IP address classes but in general, there are five of them. When it comes to Class A networks they have a beginning octet of 1-126. In class B networks they have a beginning o f the octet of 128- 191. When it comes to class C networks, their octet begins with 192-223. As you can observe, the numbers are in sequence; but 127 is missing, this is because, 127 is the reverse first octet for the loopback addresses which is addressed to a PC. When it comes to the class D, these kinds of IP addresses are used for multicasting. They begin with 224-239 range. As for class E, they are used for experiments. Their first octet of the addresses is 240-255. These addresses are set aside by the Internet Engineering Task Force and none of these are assigned to any device for hosting.

With all that, one may wonder what all the portions have to do with the identifying the network. When it comes to the A-C classes, all these have unique default network masks which are used to identify the network part of it as well as the host part of the IP address. When it comes to Class A's default part; 255.0.0.0 or / 8. One class B it is: 255.255.0.0 or / 16. While on class C the default mask is 255.255.255.0, or / 24. When it comes to the notation, the prefix mode of noting is better than the writing the whole IP address. This is used widely and most people find it easy since writing it is easier as well as the pronunciation. When it comes to identifying the network and the host, each class has its own unique way of identifying this. In class A, the first octet of the address is the network portion and the final three octets are used to identify the host portion. In class B the first two octets are used to identify the network and the last two octets are used in the identification of the host. The final of the IP address classes, the first three octets are for the network identification and the final octet is used to identify the host.