Types of Addresses in IPv4.
Within the IPv4 address range , there are three types of addresses:
Network Address - The address by which we refer to the network.
Broadcast Address - A special address used to send data to all hosts in the network.
Host Address - The addresses assigned to the end devices in the network.
Network Address
The network address is a standard way to refer to an IPv4 address assigned to a network. For example, we could refer to the network 192.168.1.0 or 172.16.0.0 as a “Network Address.” This is a much more convenient and descriptive way to refer to the network than using a term like "the first network." All hosts in the 172.16.0.0 network will have the same network bits.
when assigning IPv4 address to a host , the lowest address is reserved as the network address. This address has a 0 for each host bit in the host portion of the address, e.g
192.168.1.0 /24,
172.16.0.0 /16
Broadcast Address
The IPv4 broadcast address is a special address for each network that allows communication to all the hosts in that network. To send data to all hosts in a network, a host can send a single packet that is addressed to the broadcast address of the network.
The broadcast address uses the highest address in the network range. This is the address in which the bits in the host portion are all 1s. For the network 192.168.1.0 with 8 network bits, the broadcast address would be 192.168.0.255. This address is also referred to as the directed broadcast.
192.168.1.0 (Network Address)
192.168.1.255 (Broadcast Address)
Host Addresses
As described previously, every end device requires a unique address to recieve and send packets. In IPv4 addresses, we assign the values between the network address and the broadcast address to the devices in that network e.g. hosts includes the end devices such as PCs, IP phones, printers etc.
e.g 192.168.1.0 (Network Address)
192.168.1.255 (Broadcast Address)
192.168.1.2 - 254 (Host Addresses)
