A unique Address used by the each device in a cyber network is known as an IP address, it is mainly used to communicate each other and hence ip address is used also to identify a device in a network. IP address is classified in to two IPV4 and IPV6 address.
| IPV4 | IPV6 |
| 32 bit address | 128 bit address |
| dotted decimal format | hexa decimal format |
| IPv4 can support up to 232 addresses | IPv6 is 128 bits, can support up to 2128 addresses to fulfill future needs with better security |
| uses 4 bytes for the address | uses 16 bytes for the address |
| example:- 192.168.1.1 | example:- 1050:0:0:0:5:600:300c:326b |
IP address are again classified to 4 classes
| class | Range |
| A | 0.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255 |
| B | 128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255 |
| C | 192.168.0.0 to 223.255.255.255 |
| D | 224.0.0.0 to 234.255.255.255 |
| E | 240.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.254 |
class A,B and C are the unicast address; also class D is multicast Address, and class E Reserved for research
Loopback address is a special IP number that is designated for the software loopback interface of a machine. The loopback interface has no hardware associated with it, and it is not physically connected to a network..address 127.0.0.1 is the loopback address, and ip address 0.0.0.0 is an unknown network
A ip address has two parts:
The IP address that are used in an local area networks are called private ip address, they are also static , as they will not change automatically the range of the private ip address are:-
| class | range |
| A | 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 |
| B | 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 |
| C | 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 |