How many binary digits does an IPv4 address consist of?
IPv4 address consists of 32-bit binary value.
Related introduction:
Internet Protocol version 4 (English: Internet Protocol version 4, IPv4), also known as the fourth version of the Internet Communication Protocol, is the fourth revision in the development process of the Internet Protocol version, which is also the first widely deployed version of this protocol. IPv4 is the core of the Internet and the most widely used version of the Internet Protocol. Its successor version is IPv6. Until 2011, when the IANA IPv4 addresses were completely exhausted, IPv6 was still in the early stages of deployment.
IPv4 is described in RFC 791 published by the IETF in September 1981, which replaced RFC 760 published in January 1980.
IPv4 is a connectionless protocol that operates on the link layer (such as Ethernet) using packet switching. This protocol delivers packets on a best-effort basis, meaning that it does not guarantee that any packet will reach its destination or that all packets will arrive in the correct order without duplication. These aspects are handled by upper-layer transport protocols (such as Transmission Control Protocol).
IPv4 uses 32-bit (4-byte) addresses, so there are only 4,294,967,296 (2) addresses in the address space. However, some addresses are reserved for special purposes, such as private networks (about 18 million addresses) and multicast addresses (about 270 million addresses), which reduces the number of addresses that can be routed on the Internet. As addresses continue to be allocated to end users, the problem of IPv4 address exhaustion is also arising. Address structure reconstruction based on classified networks, classless inter-domain routing, and network address translation significantly reduces the rate of address exhaustion. But on February 3, 2011, after the last five address blocks had been allocated to the five regional Internet registries, IANA's main address pool was exhausted.
These limitations have spurred the deployment of IPv6, which is still in its early stages of development and is the only long-term solution.
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