Special IP Addressing Rules

As you've seen, certain IP addresses and address ranges have special uses:

  • The addresses 127.0.0.0 through 127.255.255.255 are reserved for local loopback.

  • The addresses 10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255, and 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255 are designated as private and as such are nonroutable.

  • On classful networks, the Class A addresses w.255.255.255, Class B addresses w.x.255.255, and Class C addresses w.x.y.255 are reserved for broadcasts.

  • On nonclassful networks, the broadcast address is the last IP address in the range of IP addresses for the associated subnet.

Note

Certain IP addresses are also reserved for other purposes as well. For example, the IP addresses 169.254.0.1 to 169.254.255.254 ...

Get Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 Inside Out now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial