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7 The Internet Protocol version 4

This is the first popular version of the Internet Protocol, and it lives to this day in common use.

7.1 IP Addresses

An IPv4 address is written in “dots and numbers” notation, like so:

198.51.100.125

It’s always four numbers. Each number represents a byte, so it can go from 0 to 255 (00000000 to 11111111 binary).

This means that every IPv4 address is four bytes (32 bits) in size.

7.2 Subnets

The entire space of IP addresses is split up into subnets. The first part of the IP address indicates the subnet number we’re talking about. The remaining part indicates the computer on that subnet in question.

And how many bits “the first part of the IP” constitutes is variable.

When you set up a network with public-facing IP addresses, you are allocated a subnet by whomever you are paying to provide you with a connection. The more hosts your subnet supports, the more expensive it is.

So you might say, “I need 180 IP static IP addresses.”

And your provider says, OK, that means you’ll have 180 IPs and 2 reserved (0 and the highest number), so 182 total. We need 8 bits to represent the numbers 0-255, which is the smallest number of bits that includes 182.

And so they allocate you a subnet that has 24 network bits and 8 host bits.

They could write out something like:

Your subnet is 198.51.100.0 and there are 24 network bits and 8 host
bits.

But that’s really verbose. So we use slash notation:

198.51.100.0/24

This tells us that 24 bits of the IP address represent the network number. (And therefore 32-24=8 bits represent the host.) But what does that mean?

Drawing it out:

24 network bits
----------
198.51.100.0
           -
         8 host bits

Or converting all those numbers to binary:

       24 network bits         | 8 host bits
-------------------------------+---------
11000110 . 00110011 . 01100100 . 00000000
     198         51        100          0

The upshot is that every single IP on our make-believe network here is going to start with 198.51.100.x. And that last byte is going to indicate which host we’re talking about.

Here are some example IPs on our network:

198.51.100.2
198.51.100.3
198.51.100.4
198.51.100.30
198.51.100.212

But these two addresses have special meaning (see below):

198.51.100.0     Reserved
198.51.100.255   Broadcast (see below)

but other than those, we can use the other IPs as we see fit.

Now, I deliberately chose an example there where the subnet ended on a byte boundary because it’s easier to see if the entire last byte is the host number.

But there’s no law about that. We could easily have a subnet like this:

198.51.100.96/28

In that case we have:

           28 network bits           | 4 host bits
-------------------------------------+----
11000110 . 00110011 . 01100100 . 0110 0000
     198         51        100          96

and we could only fill those last 4 bits with different numbers to represent our hosts.

0000 and 1111 are reserved and broadcast, leaving us with 14 more we could use for host numbers.

For example, we could fill in those last 4 bits with host number 2 (which is 0010 binary):

           28 network bits           | 4 host bits
-------------------------------------+----
11000110 . 00110011 . 01100100 . 0110 0010
     198         51        100          98

Giving the IP address 198.51.100.98.

All the IP addresses on this subnet are, exhaustively 198.51.100.96 through 198.51.100.111 (though these first are last IPs are reserved and broadcast, respectively).

Finally, if you have a subnet you own, there’s nothing stopping you for further subnetting it down–declaring that more bits are reserved for the network portion of the address.

ISPs (Internet Service Providers, like your cable or DSL company) do this all the time. They’ve given a big subnet with, say, 12 network bits (20 host bits, for 1 million possible hosts). And they have customers who want their own subnets. So the ISP decides the next 9 bits (for example) are going to be used to uniquely identify additional subnets within the ISP’s subnet. And it sells those to customers, and each customer gets 11 bits for hosts (supporting 2048 hosts).

  ISP network  |   Subnets  |    Hosts
   (12 bits)   |  (9 bits)  |  (11 bits)
---------------+------------+--------------
11010110 . 1100 0101 . 11011 001 . 00101101   [example IP]

But it doesn’t even stop there, necessarily. Maybe one of those customers you sold an 11-bit subnet to wants to further subdivide it–they can add more network bits to define their own subnets. Of course, every time you add more network bits, you’re taking away from the number of hosts you can have, but that’s the tradeoff you have to make with subnetting.

7.3 Subnet Masks

Another way of writing subnet is with a subnet mask. This is a number that when bitwise-ANDed with any IP address will give you the subnet number.

What does that mean? And why?

The subnet mask is also written with dots-and-numbers notation, and looks like an IP address with all the subnet bits set to 1.

For example, if we have the subnet 198.51.100.0/24, that means we have:

       24 network bits         | 8 host bits
-------------------------------+---------
11000110 . 00110011 . 01100100 . 00000000
     198         51        100          0

Putting a 1 in for all the network bits, we end up with:

       24 network bits         | 8 host bits
-------------------------------+---------
11111111 . 11111111 . 11111111 . 00000000
     255        255        255          0

So the subnet mask for 198.51.100.0/24 is 255.255.255.0. It’s the same subnet mask for any /24 subnet.

The subnet mask for a /16 subnet has the first 16 bits set to 1: 255.255.0.0.

But why? Turns out a router can take any IP address and quickly determine its destination subnet by ANDing the IP address with the subnet mask.

         24 network bits         | 8 host bits
  -------------------------------+---------
  11000110 . 00110011 . 01100100 . 01000011    198. 51.100.67
& 11111111 . 11111111 . 11111111 . 00000000  & 255.255.255. 0
-------------------------------------------  ----------------
  11000110 . 00110011 . 01100100 . 00000000    198. 51.100. 0

And so the subnet for the IP address 198.51.100.67 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 is 198.51.100.0.

7.4 Historic Subnets

(This information is only included for historical interest.)

Before the idea that any number of bits could be reserved for the network, subnets were split into 3 main classes:

The problem was that this caused a really uneven distribution of subnets, with some large companies getting 16 million hosts (that they didn’t need), and there was no subnet class that supported a sensible number of computers, like 1,000.

So we switched to the more-flexible “any number of bits in the mask” approach.

7.5 Special Addresses

There are a few common addresses that are worth noting:

7.6 Special Subnets

There are some reserved subnets you might come across:

You’ll find your home IPs are in one of the “Private” address ranges. Probably 192.168.x.x.

Any documentation that you write that requires example (not real) IP addresses should use any of the ones marked “Documentation”, above.

7.7 Reflect

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