Types of network addressing

we can say that if any two devices want to engage in any kind of dialogue
(communication), then they should first identify themselves in this complex network
transmission arena. So first they should know each other’s respective addresses (of source
and destination) .
In the internet employing TCP/IP protocol, we have four levels of addresses being in
use for different layers. Now let us see the different addressing methods in detail.
Four types of addressing methods used are the following :
 Physical address
 Logical address (IP)
 Port address and
 Specific address

Before we dig deep into each type of addressing, we should first understand the respective
mapping (implementation) of each address in each of the layers of TCP/IP model:

TCP/IP Layer Addressing Used

Application layer Specific address

Transport layer Port address
Network or Internet Layer Logical address
Data link layer/Physical
Physical address
layer

1. MAC Addresses (Physical Address):

It is also known as the ‘Link address‘ . It is basically the address of any particular
node that has been described by the LAN or WAN (already covered in the previous post).
It is further included inside the frame which is utilized by the DLL (data link layer) of OSI
model. It is the bottom-most layer (bottom-most address in OSI model) address.
The packets through the source to destination hosts move across physical networks. The
internet protocol address details is not useful however the host and routers are acknowledged
by their MAC addresses .

A MAC address is basically a local address. It will be unique locally but it is not unique
universally. The format and size of this kind of address will further change depending on the
network.Most importantly we should be able to map an IP address into a corresponding MAC
address.The size and format of any physical address vary depending on the nature of network.

The Ethernet (LAN) uses a 48-bit (6-byte) physical address which is normally
produced in the network interfacing card (NIC).

The sender computer with a physical address of 15 wants of communicate with the receiver
computer with a physical address 54.The frame sent by any sender consists of the destination
address,senders address,encapsulated data, and a trailer that contains the error control bit.
When this frame travels over the bus topology ,each and every computer receives it and tries
to match it with its own physical address.Each of the stations having a physical address which
is other than 54 declines the frame simply because the destination target contained in the
framework doesn’t match it’s very own physical address .
If the destination address in the frame header does not match with the physical address it will
simply drop the frame.At receiver computer(D) the destinations address matches with its
physical address (54).So the frame is accepted and decapsulation is carried out to recover the
data.Thus finally the frame is checked, the header and the trailer are dropped, and the data
part is then decapsulated and delivered to the upper layer.

2. Logical Address(IP Addresses):

Logical address is required to facilitate universal communication in which different
types of the physical networks can be involved. In a universal addressing system, every single
host will be recognized individually, regardless of any fundamental physical network.
The logical address is also called the IP (Internet Protocol) address.

The internet consists of many physical networks interconnected via devices like routers.
Internet is a packed switched networked that means the data from the source computer is sent
in the form of small packets carrying the destination address upon them.

A packet starts from the source host,passes through many physical networks, and finally
reaches the destination host.When the frame reaches the destination, the packet is then
decapsulated.
The destination logical address further matches the logical address of a particular computer.
The data are then finally decapsulated from the packet and then delivered (forwarded) to the
upper layer.
The message frame is initially received by every unit on the LAN network , but is then
declined by all apart from the necessarily required router, which ultimately realizes that the
location destination address in the frame fits with its own target physical address. The router
then finally decapsulates the data packet in order to retrieve the destination logical address .

At the network level , the hosts and routers are further recognised by their IP
Addresses.Note that although the physical addresses will change itself from the hop to hop
movement (each jump transition) , the logical addresses will remain the same from the source
to destination .

An IP address is an internetwork address .It is a universally unique address.

Every protocol involved in internetwork requires IP address.The logical address used on the
internet is currently a 32-bit address . The same IP address can be used by more than one
computer on the internet.

3. Port Address:
The IP and Physical address are essential for any level of data traveling from the
certain specific source to the destination host that is required. But in today’s modern
computers, we may require to run multiple processes on it simultaneously.
Let us suppose a computer says ‘A’ first initiate communication with another computer
named ‘C’ by using TELNET. Further, consider now, the same computer ‘A’ communicates
with any computer ‘B’ simultaneously by means of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) .
 The main objective of the internet is the process to process communications. For this
purpose, it is necessary to label or name a specific process.
Thus the process needs addresses. The label that is allocated to a process is known as the port
address.It is a 16 bit address field .
The physical addresses change for each and every trip a packet takes, but the logical and port
addresses basically will remain as it is.

4. Specific Addresses:
A few of the applications generally have simple (easy to use) address. Examples of
specific addresses are the e-mail addresses of the University Resource Locators(URL).
Examples mainly consist of the email address (for eg, electronicscrunch@gmail.com) and the
Universal Resource Locator (URL) (for eg , www.gmail.com).

These kinds of addresses are designed for a specific address. However, this address
gets changed according to the required logical and port addresses sent from the sender
computer.So this is it from this topic of different addressing methods implemented in TCP/IP
architecture. From the next post onwards we will start looking into each of the protocols in
detail.

Network Addressing

o Network Addressing is one of the major responsibilities of the network layer.

o Network addresses are always logical, i.e., software-based addresses.
o A host is also known as end system that has one link to the network. The boundary
between the host and link is known as an interface. Therefore, the host can have only
one interface.
o A router is different from the host in that it has two or more links that connect to it.
When a router forwards the datagram, then it forwards the packet to one of the links.
The boundary between the router and link is known as an interface, and the router can
have multiple interfaces, one for each of its links. Each interface is capable of sending
and receiving the IP packets, so IP requires each interface to have an address.
o Each IP address is 32 bits long, and they are represented in the form of "dot-decimal
notation" where each byte is written in the decimal form, and they are separated by
the period. An IP address would look like 193.32.216.9 where 193 represents the
decimal notation of first 8 bits of an address, 32 represents the decimal notation of
second 8 bits of an address.

o  Let's understand through a simple example.

 o
o In the above figure, a router has three interfaces labeled as 1, 2 & 3 and each router
interface contains its own IP address.
o Each host contains its own interface and IP address.
o All the interfaces attached to the LAN 1 is having an IP address in the form of
223.1.1.xxx, and the interfaces attached to the LAN 2 and LAN 3 have an IP address
in the form of 223.1.2.xxx and 223.1.3.xxx respectively.
o Each IP address consists of two parts. The first part (first three bytes in IP address)
specifies the network and second part (last byte of an IP address) specifies the host in
the network.

Classful Addressing

An IP address is 32-bit long. An IP address is divided into sub-classes:

o Class A
o Class B
o Class C
o Class D
o Class E

An ip address is divided into two parts:

o Network ID: It represents the number of networks.

o Host ID: It represents the number of hosts.
In the above diagram, we observe that each class have a specific range of IP addresses. The
class of IP address is used to determine the number of bits used in a class and number of
networks and hosts available in the class.

Class A

In Class A, an IP address is assigned to those networks that contain a large number of hosts

o The network ID is 8 bits long.

o The host ID is 24 bits long.

In Class A, the first bit in higher order bits of the first octet is always set to 0 and the
remaining 7 bits determine the network ID. The 24 bits determine the host ID in any network.

The total number of networks in Class A = 27 = 128 network address

The total number of hosts in Class A = 224 - 2 = 16,777,214 host address

Class B

In Class B, an IP address is assigned to those networks that range from small-sized to large-
sized networks.

o The Network ID is 16 bits long.

o The Host ID is 16 bits long.
In Class B, the higher order bits of the first octet is always set to 10, and the remaining14 bits
determine the network ID. The other 16 bits determine the Host ID.

The total number of networks in Class B = 214 = 16384 network address

The total number of hosts in Class B = 216 - 2 = 65534 host address

Class C

In Class C, an IP address is assigned to only small-sized networks.

o The Network ID is 24 bits long.

o The host ID is 8 bits long.

In Class C, the higher order bits of the first octet is always set to 110, and the remaining 21
bits determine the network ID. The 8 bits of the host ID determine the host in a network.

The total number of networks = 221 = 2097152 network address

The total number of hosts = 28 - 2 = 254 host address

Class D

In Class D, an IP address is reserved for multicast addresses. It does not possess subnetting.
The higher order bits of the first octet is always set to 1110, and the remaining bits
determines the host ID in any network.

Class E

In Class E, an IP address is used for the future use or for the research and development
purposes. It does not possess any subnetting. The higher order bits of the first octet is always
set to 1111, and the remaining bits determines the host ID in any network.
Rules for assigning Host ID:

The Host ID is used to determine the host within any network. The Host ID is assigned based
on the following rules:

o The Host ID must be unique within any network.

o The Host ID in which all the bits are set to 0 cannot be assigned as it is used to
represent the network ID of the IP address.
o The Host ID in which all the bits are set to 1 cannot be assigned as it is reserved for
the multicast address.

Rules for assigning Network ID:

If the hosts are located within the same local network, then they are assigned with the same
network ID. The following are the rules for assigning Network ID:

o The network ID cannot start with 127 as 127 is used by Class A.

o The Network ID in which all the bits are set to 0 cannot be assigned as it is used to
specify a particular host on the local network.
o The Network ID in which all the bits are set to 1 cannot be assigned as it is reserved
for the multicast address.

Classful Network Architecture

Class Higher NET ID HOST No.of No.of Range

bits bits ID bits networks hosts
per
network

A 0 8 24 27 224 0.0.0.0 to
127.255.255.255

B 10 16 16 214 216 128.0.0.0 to

191.255.255.255

C 110 24 8 221 28 192.0.0.0 to

223.255.255.255

D 1110 Not Not Not Not 224.0.0.0 to

 Defined Defined Defined Defined 239.255.255.255

E 1111 Not Not Not Not 240.0.0.0 to

Defined Defined Defined Defined 255.255.255.255