With the classful addressing, it divides IP address into three classes, class A, class B and class C. The rest of IP addresses are for multicast and broadcast. The bit length of the network prefix is the same as that of the subnet mask and is denoted as IP address/X, for example, 192.168.1.0/24. Each class has its address range described below.

Class A:

Address is less than 126.255.255.255. There are a total of 126 networks can be defined because the address 0.0.0.0 is reserved for default route and 127.0.0.0/8 is reserved for loopback function.

Bit #

0 1

7 8

0

Network address

Host address

Class B:

IP address range between 128.0.0.0 and 191.255.255.255. Each class B network has a 16-bit network prefix followed 16-bit host address. There are 16,384 (2^14)/16 networks able to be defined with a maximum of 65534 (2^16 –2) hosts per network.

Bit #

01 2

15 16

10

Network address

Host address

Class C:

IP address range between 192.0.0.0 and 223.255.255.255. Each class C network has a 24-bit network prefix followed 8-bit host address. There are 2,097,152 (2^21)/24 networks able to be defined with a maximum of 254 (2^8 –2) hosts per network.

Bit # 0 1 2 3

23 24

31

110

Network address

Host

20

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LevelOne GSW-2496 user manual 110