IP Addressing Fundamentals

Chapter 2. Classical IP: The Way It Was

The Internet has become so successful and ubiquitous that it is difficult to imagine finding a working professional who isn't an ardent user. The Internet was founded on a suite of communication protocols called the Internet Protocol (IP). IP has undergone some tremendous changes in the last two decades, as has its underlying addressing system. This chapter examines the original form of IP addressing: Classical IP.

Classical IP was a fairly simple approach to carving a large address space into smaller, more usable spaces. This subdivision was achieved by breaking the original space into distinct and hierarchical classes. In theory, different-sized classes would let small, medium, and large entities obtain ...