The IP address is the core component on which the networking architecture is built; no network exists without it. Among other technical changes, each version defines the format of addresses differently. In 1981, the addressing specification was revised with the introduction of Classful network design allowed for a larger number of individual network assignments and fine-grained subnetwork design. IP addresses are assigned to a host either dynamically as they join the network, or persistently by configuration of the host hardware or software. Many modern IP addresses are classified into several classes of operational characteristics: unicast, multicast, anycast and broadcast addressing. With a large address space, there is no need to have complex address conservation methods as used in CIDR.

Internet Protocol Addressing: Classful Addressing The IP provides an interface to an IP network, which is logical, not physical, as provided by the data link layer protocol. Today, these two versions of the Internet Protocol are in simultaneous use. Internet Protocol version 4 defines an IP address as a 32-bit number. Because of the historical prevalence of IPv4, the generic term Other versions v1 to v9 were defined, but only v4 and v6 ever gained widespread use. This resulted in slower growth of The large number of IPv6 addresses allows large blocks to be assigned for specific purposes and, where appropriate, to be aggregated for efficient routing. v1 and v2 were names for An IPv4 address has a size of 32 bits, which limits the In the early stages of development of the Internet Protocol, the network number was always the highest order octet (most significant eight bits). A public IP address, in common parlance, is a globally routable unicast IP address, meaning that the address is not an address reserved for use in For security and privacy considerations, network administrators often desire to restrict public Internet traffic within their private networks. DHCP assigns IP addresses using a pool of available addresses which are part of the whole addressing scheme. This link is near the bottom of the page. By following this protocol you can have an address with a structure that will allow you to build a scalable data communication system analogous to the postal system. The source and destination IP addresses contained in the headers of each IP packet are a convenient means to discriminate traffic by The NAT device maps different IP addresses on the private network to different TCP or UDP Computer operating systems provide various diagnostic tools to examine network interfaces and address configuration.

When the link-local IPv4 address block was reserved, no standards existed for mechanisms of address autoconfiguration. An IP address serves two main functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing. However, it was found that this was not always necessary as private networks developed and public address space needed to be conserved. An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a logical numeric address that is assigned to every single computer, printer, switch, router or any other device that is part of a TCP/IP-based network. Network nodes are assigned IP addresses by the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server as soon as the nodes connect to a network. Computers and equipment used for the network infrastructure, such as routers and mail servers, are typically configured with static addressing. An IP address is a logical address that is used to uniquely identify every node in the network. Numerical label used to identify a network interface in an IP network

Persistent configuration is also known as using a Dynamic IP addresses are assigned by network using The address assigned with DHCP is associated with a DHCP is not the only technology used to assign IP addresses dynamically.