Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet, and was the first version deployed for production in the ARPANET in 1983. It still routes most Internet traffic today,[1] despite the ongoing deployment of a successor protocol, IPv6. IPv4 is described in IETF publication RFC 791 (September 1981), replacing an earlier definition (RFC 760, January 1980).

IPv4 is a connectionless protocol for use on packet-switched networks. It operates on a best effort delivery model, in that it does not guarantee delivery, nor does it assure proper sequencing or avoidance of duplicate delivery. These aspects, including data integrity, are addressed by an upper layer transport protocol, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

Addressing [ edit ]

Decomposition of the quad-dotted IPv4 address representation to its binary value

IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses which limits the address space to 4294967296 (232) addresses.

IPv4 reserves special address blocks for private networks (~18 million addresses) and multicast addresses (~270 million addresses).

Address representations [ edit ]

IPv4 addresses may be represented in any notation expressing a 32-bit integer value. They are most often written in the dot-decimal notation, which consists of four octets of the address expressed individually in decimal numbers and separated by periods.

For example, the quad-dotted IP address 192.0.2.235 represents the 32-bit decimal number 3221226219, which in hexadecimal format is 0xC00002EB. This may also be expressed in dotted hex format as 0xC0.0x00.0x02.0xEB, or with octal byte values as 0300.0000.0002.0353.

CIDR notation combines the address with its routing prefix in a compact format, in which the address is followed by a slash character (/) and the count of consecutive 1 bits in the routing prefix (subnet mask).

Allocation [ edit ]

In the original design of IPv4, an IP address was divided into two parts: the network identifier was the most significant octet of the address, and the host identifier was the rest of the address. The latter was also called the rest field. This structure permitted a maximum of 256 network identifiers, which was quickly found to be inadequate.

To overcome this limit, the most-significant address octet was redefined in 1981 to create network classes, in a system which later became known as classful networking. The revised system defined five classes. Classes A, B, and C had different bit lengths for network identification. The rest of the address was used as previously to identify a host within a network. Because of the different sizes of fields in different classes, each network class had a different capacity for addressing hosts. In addition to the three classes for addressing hosts, Class D was defined for multicast addressing and Class E was reserved for future applications.

Dividing existing classful networks into subnets began in 1985 with the publication of RFC 950. This division was made more flexible with the introduction of variable-length subnet masks (VLSM) in RFC 1109 in 1987. In 1993, based on this work, RFC 1517 introduced Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR),[2] which expressed the number of bits (from the most significant) as, for instance, /24, and the class-based scheme was dubbed classful, by contrast. CIDR was designed to permit repartitioning of any address space so that smaller or larger blocks of addresses could be allocated to users. The hierarchical structure created by CIDR is managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the regional Internet registries (RIRs). Each RIR maintains a publicly searchable WHOIS database that provides information about IP address assignments.

Special-use addresses [ edit ]

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) have restricted from general use various reserved IP addresses for special purposes. Notably these addresses are used for multicast traffic and to provide addressing space for unrestricted uses on private networks.

Private networks [ edit ]

Of the approximately four billion addresses defined in IPv4, three ranges are reserved for use in private networks. Packets addresses in these ranges are not routable in the public Internet, because they are ignored by all public routers. Therefore, private hosts cannot directly communicate with public networks, but require network address translation at a routing gateway for this purpose.

Reserved private IPv4 network ranges[4] Name CIDR block Address range Number of addresses Classful description 24-bit block 10.0.0.0/8 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255 7007167772160000000♠ 16 777 216 Single Class A. 20-bit block 172.16.0.0/12 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255 7006104857600000000♠ 1 048 576 Contiguous range of 16 Class B blocks. 16-bit block 192.168.0.0/16 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255 7004655360000000000♠ 65 536 Contiguous range of 256 Class C blocks.

Since two private networks, e.g., two branch offices, cannot directly interoperate via the public Internet, the two networks must be bridged across the Internet via a virtual private network (VPN) or an IP tunnel, which encapsulate the packet in a protocol layer during transmission across the public network. Additionally, encapsulated packets may be encrypted for the transmission across public networks to secure the data.

Link-local addressing [ edit ]

RFC 3927 defines the special address block 169.254.0.0/16 for link-local addressing. These addresses are only valid on links (such as a local network segment or point-to-point connection) connected to a host. These addresses are not routable. Like private addresses, these addresses cannot be the source or destination of packets traversing the internet. These addresses are primarily used for address autoconfiguration (Zeroconf) when a host cannot obtain an IP address from a DHCP server or other internal configuration methods.

When the address block was reserved, no standards existed for address autoconfiguration. Microsoft created an implementation called Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA), which was deployed on millions of machines and became a de facto standard. Many years later, in May 2005, the IETF defined a formal standard in RFC 3927, entitled Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses.

Loopback [ edit ]

The class A network 127.0.0.0 (classless network 127.0.0.0/8) is reserved for loopback. IP packets whose source addresses belong to this network should never appear outside a host. The modus operandi of this network expands upon that of a loopback interface:

IP packets whose source and destination addresses belong to the network (or subnetwork) of the same loopback interface are returned to that interface;

IP packets whose source and destination addresses belong to networks (or subnetworks) of different interfaces of the same host, one of them being a loopback interface, are forwarded regularly.

Addresses ending in 0 or 255 [ edit ]

Networks with subnet masks of at least 24 bits, i.e. Class C networks in classful networking, and networks with CIDR suffixes /24 to /30 (255.255.255.0–255.255.255.252) may not have an address ending in 0 or 255.

Classful addressing prescribed only three possible subnet masks: Class A, 255.0.0.0 or /8; Class B, 255.255.0.0 or /16; and Class C, 255.255.255.0 or /24. For example, in the subnet 192.168.5.0/255.255.255.0 (192.168.5.0/24) the identifier 192.168.5.0 commonly is used to refer to the entire subnet. To avoid ambiguity in representation, the address ending in the octet 0 is reserved.

A broadcast address[1] is an address that allows information to be sent to all interfaces in a given subnet, rather than a specific machine. Generally, the broadcast address is found by obtaining the bit complement of the subnet mask and performing a bitwise OR operation with the network identifier. In other words, the broadcast address is the last address in the address range of the subnet. For example, the broadcast address for the network 192.168.5.0 is 192.168.5.255. For networks of size /24 or larger, the broadcast address always ends in 255.

Binary form Dot-decimal notation Network space 11000000.10101000.00000101.00000000 192.168.5.0 Broadcast address 11000000.10101000.00000101.11111111 192.168.5.255 In bold, is shown the host part of the IP; the other part is the network prefix. The host gets inverted (logical NOT), but the network prefix remains intact.

However, this does not mean that every address ending in 0 or 255 cannot be used as a host address. For example, in the /16 subnet 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0, which is equivalent to the address range 192.168.0.0–192.168.255.255, the broadcast address is 192.168.255.255. One can use the following addresses for hosts, even though they end with 255: 192.168.1.255, 192.168.2.255, etc. Also, 192.168.0.0 is the network identifier and must not be assigned to an interface.[14] The addresses 192.168.1.0, 192.168.2.0, etc., may be assigned, despite ending with 0.

In the past, conflict between network addresses and broadcast addresses arose because some software used non-standard broadcast addresses with zeros instead of ones.[15]

In networks smaller than /24, broadcast addresses do not necessarily end with 255. For example, a CIDR subnet 203.0.113.16/28 has the broadcast address 203.0.113.31.

Binary form Dot-decimal notation Network space 11001011.00000000.01110001.00010000 203.0.113.16 Broadcast address 11001011.00000000.01110001.00011111 203.0.113.31 In bold, is shown the host part of the IP; the other part is the network prefix. The host gets inverted (logical NOT), but the network prefix remains intact.

Address resolution [ edit ]

Hosts on the Internet are usually known by names, e.g., www.example.com, not primarily by their IP address, which is used for routing and network interface identification. The use of domain names requires translating, called resolving, them to addresses and vice versa. This is analogous to looking up a phone number in a phone book using the recipient's name.

The translation between addresses and domain names is performed by the Domain Name System (DNS), a hierarchical, distributed naming system which allows for subdelegation of name spaces to other DNS servers.

Address space exhaustion [ edit ]

Since the 1980s, it was apparent that the pool of available IPv4 addresses was being depleted at a rate that was not initially anticipated in the original design of the network address system.[16] The main market forces which accelerated IPv4 address depletion included:

The threat of exhaustion motivated the introduction of a number of remedial technologies, such as classful networks, Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) methods, network address translation (NAT) and strict usage-based allocation policies. To provide a long-term solution to the pending address exhaustion, IPv6 was created in the 1990s, which made many more addresses available by increasing the address size to 128 bits. IPv6 has been in commercial deployment since 2006.

The primary address pool of the Internet, maintained by IANA, was exhausted on 3 February 2011, when the last 5 blocks were allocated to the 5 RIRs.[17][18] APNIC was the first RIR to exhaust its regional pool on 15 April 2011, except for a small amount of address space reserved for the transition to IPv6, which will be allocated under a much more restricted policy.[19]

The accepted and standard long term solution is to use IPv6 which increased the address size to 128 bits, providing a vastly increased address space that also allows improved route aggregation across the Internet and offers large subnetwork allocations of a minimum of 264 host addresses to end-users. However IPv4-only hosts cannot directly communicate with IPv6-only hosts so IPv6 alone does not provide an immediate solution to the IPv4 exhaustion problem. Migration to IPv6 is in progress but completion is expected to take considerable time. [20]

Packet structure [ edit ]

An IP packet consists of a header section and a data section.

An IP packet has no data checksum or any other footer after the data section. Typically the link layer encapsulates IP packets in frames with a CRC footer that detects most errors, and typically the end-to-end TCP layer checksum detects most other errors.[21]

Header [ edit ]

The IPv4 packet header consists of 14 fields, of which 13 are required. The 14th field is optional and aptly named: options. The fields in the header are packed with the most significant byte first (big endian), and for the diagram and discussion, the most significant bits are considered to come first (MSB 0 bit numbering). The most significant bit is numbered 0, so the version field is actually found in the four most significant bits of the first byte, for example.

Data [ edit ]

The packet payload is not included in the checksum. Its contents are interpreted based on the value of the Protocol header field.

Some of the common payload protocols are:

See List of IP protocol numbers for a complete list.

Fragmentation and reassembly [ edit ]

The Internet Protocol enables traffic between networks. The design accommodates networks of diverse physical nature; it is independent of the underlying transmission technology used in the Link Layer. Networks with different hardware usually vary not only in transmission speed, but also in the maximum transmission unit (MTU). When one network wants to transmit datagrams to a network with a smaller MTU, it may fragment its datagrams. In IPv4, this function was placed at the Internet Layer, and is performed in IPv4 routers, which thus require no implementation of any higher layers for the function of routing IP packets.

In contrast, IPv6, the next generation of the Internet Protocol, does not allow routers to perform fragmentation; hosts must determine the path MTU before sending datagrams.

Fragmentation [ edit ]

When a router receives a packet, it examines the destination address and determines the outgoing interface to use and that interface's MTU. If the packet size is bigger than the MTU, and the Do not Fragment (DF) bit in the packet's header is set to 0, then the router may fragment the packet.

The router divides the packet into fragments. The max size of each fragment is the MTU minus the IP header size (20 bytes minimum; 60 bytes maximum). The router puts each fragment into its own packet, each fragment packet having following changes:

The total length field is the fragment size.

field is the fragment size. The more fragments (MF) flag is set for all fragments except the last one, which is set to 0.

(MF) flag is set for all fragments except the last one, which is set to 0. The fragment offset field is set, based on the offset of the fragment in the original data payload. This is measured in units of eight-byte blocks.

field is set, based on the offset of the fragment in the original data payload. This is measured in units of eight-byte blocks. The header checksum field is recomputed.

For example, for an MTU of 1,500 bytes and a header size of 20 bytes, the fragment offsets would be multiples of 1500 − 20 8 = 185 {\displaystyle {\frac {1500-20}{8}}=185} . These multiples are 0, 185, 370, 555, 740, ...

It is possible that a packet is fragmented at one router, and that the fragments are further fragmented at another router. For example, a packet of 4,520 bytes, including the 20 bytes of the IP header (without options) is fragmented to two packets on a link with an MTU of 2,500 bytes:

Fragment Total bytes Header bytes Data bytes "More fragments" flag Fragment offset (8-byte blocks) 1 2500 20 2480 1 0 2 2040 20 2020 0 310

The total data size is preserved: 2480 bytes + 2020 bytes = 4500 bytes. The offsets are 0 {\displaystyle 0} and 0 + 2480 8 = 310 {\displaystyle {\frac {0+2480}{8}}=310} .

On a link with an MTU of 1,500 bytes, each fragment results in two fragments:

Fragment Total bytes Header bytes Data bytes "More fragments" flag Fragment offset (8-byte blocks) 1 1500 20 1480 1 0 2 1020 20 1000 1 185 3 1500 20 1480 1 310 4 560 20 540 0 495

Again, the data size is preserved: 1480 + 1000 = 2480, and 1480 + 540 = 2020.

Also in this case, the More Fragments bit remains 1 for all the fragments that came with 1 in them and for the last fragment that arrives, it works as usual, that is the MF bit is set to 0 only in the last one. And of course, the Identification field continues to have the same value in all re-fragmented fragments. This way, even if fragments are re-fragmented, the receiver knows they have initially all started from the same packet.

The last offset and last data size are used to calculate the total data size: 495 × 8 + 540 = 3960 + 540 = 4500 {\displaystyle 495\times 8+540=3960+540=4500} .

Reassembly [ edit ]

A receiver knows that a packet is a fragment if at least one of the following conditions is true:

The "more fragments" flag is set. (This is true for all fragments except the last.)

The "fragment offset" field is nonzero. (This is true for all fragments except the first.)

The receiver identifies matching fragments using the foreign and local address, the protocol ID, and the identification field. The receiver reassembles the data from fragments with the same ID using both the fragment offset and the more fragments flag. When the receiver receives the last fragment (which has the "more fragments" flag set to 0), it can calculate the length of the original data payload, by multiplying the last fragment's offset by eight, and adding the last fragment's data size. In the example above, this calculation was 495*8 + 540 = 4500 bytes.

When the receiver has all fragments, they can be correctly ordered by using the offsets, and reassembled to yield the original data segment.

Assistive protocols [ edit ]

The Internet Protocol is the protocol that defines and enables internetworking at the Internet Layer and thus forms the Internet. It uses a logical addressing system. IP addresses are not tied in any permanent manner to hardware identifications and, indeed, a network interface can have multiple IP addresses. Hosts and routers need additional mechanisms to identify the relationship between device interfaces and IP addresses, in order to properly deliver an IP packet to the destination host on a link. The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) performs this IP-address-to-hardware-address translation for IPv4. (A hardware address is also called a MAC address.) In addition, the reverse correlation is often necessary. For example, when an IP host is booted or connected to a network it needs to determine its IP address, unless an address is preconfigured by an administrator. Protocols for such inverse correlations exist in the Internet Protocol Suite. Currently used methods are Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP) and, infrequently, reverse ARP.

See also [ edit ]

Notes [ edit ]