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IP Stands for Internet Protocol. It is a numerical label assigned to each device connected to a network for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions. It identifies the host, or more specifically its network interface, and it provides the location of the host in the network, and thus the capability of establishing a path to that host. The header of each IP packet contains the IP address of the sending host, and that of the destination host.
IP versions:
Two versions of the Internet Protocol are in common use in the Internet today and they are
1. Internet Protocol V4(IPv4)
2. Internet Protocol V6(IPv6)
The original version of the Internet Protocol that was first deployed in 1983. The rapid usage of IPv4 address space available for assignment to Internet service providers and end user organizations by the early 1990s, prompted the IETF to explore new technologies to expand the addressing capability in the Internet. The result was a redesign of the Internet Protocol which became eventually known as Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) in 1995. Today, these two versions of the Internet Protocol are in simultaneous use.
IPv4 Address:
An IPv4 address has a size of 32 bits, which limits the address space to 4294967296 addresses. IP address is basically has 4 octets and usually represented in dot-decimal notation. As we all know octet means 8 bits, octet can vary from 0 to 255. So each octet of IP Address can range from 0 to 255. e.g: 172.16.0.1 . There are five classes of available IPv4 Address ranges. They are Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E, while only A, B, and C are commonly used. Each class allows for a range of valid IP addresses
In this Class A,B & C range IP Address are separated as Public IP Address & Private IP Address.
Early network design, Network Devices are Connected global end-to-end connectivity. So intended that IP addresses be globally unique. However, it was found that this was not always necessary as private networks developed and public address space needed to be conserved. Sum Computers are not connected to the Internet, such as factory machines that communicate only with each other via TCP/IP, need not have globally unique IP addresses.
So three non-overlapping ranges of IPv4 addresses for private networks are reserved. These addresses are not routed on the Internet and their use need not be coordinated with an IP address registry. Any user can use this Private IP Address in there network. Typically, a network administrator will divide a block into subnets. Many home routers automatically use a default address range of 192.168.0.0/24 or 192.168.1.0/24.
IPv6 Address:
In IPv6, the address size was increased from 32 bits in IPv4 to 128 bits. which limits the address space to 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 addresses. It is 128 bits divided into eight 16-bits blocks. Each block is then converted into 4-digit Hexadecimal numbers separated by colon symbols. e.g: 1200:0000:AB00:1234:0000:2552:7777:1313 . All modern desktop and enterprise server operating systems include native support for the IPv6 protocol, but it is not yet widely deployed in other devices, such as residential networking routers, voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia equipment, and some networking hardware. IPv6 are referred to as unique local addresses (ULAs).The More Details Regarding IPv6 will be Update Soon.
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