Introduction To Networking

IP Address
Internet Protocol address, is an identifying number for network hardware connected to a network. Having an IP Address allows a device to communicate with other devices over an IP-based network like the internet. It provides an identity to a networked device on the internet. Similar to a home or business address that supplies a specific physical location with an identifiable address, devices on a network are differentiated from one another through IP addresses.
IP Versions (IPv4 vs IPv6)

• IPv4: The way IPv4 addresses are constructed means it’s able to provide over 4 billion unique IP addresses (232). While this is a large number of addresses, it’s not enough for the modern world with all the different devices used on the internet.
• IPv6: IPv6 supports 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses (2128). That’s 340 with 12 zeros! This means every person on earth could connect billions of devices to the internet.

Subnetting
Subnetting is the strategy used to partition a single physical network into more than one smaller logical sub-networks (subnets). Subnets are designed by accepting bits from the IP address’s host part and using these bits to assign a number of smaller sub-networks inside the original network. Subnetting allows an organization to add sub-networks without the need to acquire a new network number via the Internet service provider (ISP). Subnetting helps to reduce the network traffic and conceals network complexity. Subnetting is essential when a single network number has to be allocated over numerous segments of a local area network (LAN).Subnets were initially designed for solving the shortage of IP addresses over the Internet.

CIDR range
Classless inter-domain routing (CIDR) is a method for allocating IP addresses and IP routing in which collection of Internet Protocol (IP) standards used to create unique identifiers for networks and individual devices. The IP addresses allow the transmission of unique packets of information to specific computers. CIDR is mainly used for the efficient use of the IP addresses and to solve the routing table explosion. It is an address block allocation.

Classes
They are Class A address, Class B address, Class C address, Class D address, Class E address.
Class A address: In Class A the first bit is considered. It is always set to zero. It can take the IP address from 1.X.X.X to 126.X.X.X.

Class B address: In the Class B first two bits are considered. It can take the IP address from 128.0.X.X to 191.255.X.X.

Class C address: In Class C the first three bits are considered. It can take the IP address from 192.0.0.X to 223.255.255.X.

Class D address: In-Class D first four bits are considered. It can take the IP address from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255. This Class is used for multicasting.

Class E address: The IP addresses in Class E are reserved for Research and Development. It can take the IP address from 240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254.
For host addresses, we use the IP addresses of Class A/ Class B/ Class C.

Static IP address

The static IP address is fixed IP address which is manually assigned to a device for a long period of time. It does not change each time when the user connects to the network or sends a message. It is usually assigned to the servers, mail servers etc. When the device is configured with static IP address, it can be tracked
Dynamic IP address
The Dynamic IP address frequently changes whenever user boots his/her machine, and it is automatically assigned. It is usually configured on the devices using DHCP protocol. The tracking of the device is difficult as the IP address is always changing.