3Com 3C421600A Reference Manual page 241

C
IP Addressing Basics
A
DRESSING
TThis chapter contains the following information:
IP Addressing Basics
Supernetting
IP Subnet Mask Address Table
Administrators generally use three address classes in IP, with address
ranges as follows:
Class A - 0-127; Class B - 128 - 191; and Class C - 192 - 248.
IP addresses are 32 bits long and generally written in dotted decimal
notation: four decimal values separated by periods, followed by a
forward slash and the associated subnet mask. For example,
192.77.203.5/255.255.255.0.
The same 32 bits can be divided in a number of different ways to indicate
networks and subnetworks of different sizes. Imagine that the node
addresses are no longer the physical addresses of your network interface
cards, but arbitrary numbers that are mapped to those physical addresses
later. You could then accommodate varying network structures from a
small number of network segments with huge numbers of nodes to large
numbers of networks with only a few nodes.
S
CHEMES