Your IP address identifies your computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using TCP/IP route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address, shown as 4 numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 1.132.12.110 could be an IP address. Within isolated networks, you can assign IP addresses at random as long as each one is unique. However, connecting a private network to the Internet requires using registered IP addresses (called Internet addresses) to avoid duplication.

The four numbers in an IP address are used in different ways to identify a particular network and a host on that network. Four regional Internet registries - ARIN, RIPE NCC, LACNIC and APNIC - assign Internet addresses from the following three classes:

Class A - supports 16 million hosts on each of 126 networks Class B - supports 65,000 hosts on each of 16,000 networks Class C - supports 254 hosts on each of 2 million networks The number of unassigned Internet addresses is running out, so a new scheme called CIDR is gradually replacing the system based on classes A, B, and C ...

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