networks with a moderate number of hosts, and a large number of networks with a small number of hosts. In addition there is an escape code for extended addressing mode.
Address Formats:
High Order Bits Format Class --------------- ------------------------------- ----- 0 7 bits of net, 24 bits of host a 10 14 bits of net, 16 bits of host b 110 21 bits of net, 8 bits of host c 111 escape to extended addressing mode
A value of zero in the network field means this network. This is only used in certain ICMP messages. The extended addressing mode is undefined. Both of these features are reserved for future use.
The actual values assigned for network addresses is given in "Assigned Numbers" [9].
The local address, assigned by the local network, must allow for a single physical host to act as several distinct internet hosts. That is, there must be a mapping between internet host addresses and network/host interfaces that allows several internet addresses to correspond to one interface. It must also be allowed for a host to have several physical interfaces and to treat the datagrams from several of them as if they were all addressed to a single host.
Address mappings between internet addresses and addresses for ARPANET, SATNET, PRNET, and other networks are described in "Address Mappings" [5].
Fragmentation and Reassembly.
The internet identification field (ID) is used together with the source and destination address, and the protocol fields, to identify datagram fragments for reassembly.
The More Fragments flag bit (MF) is set if the datagram is not the last fragment. The Fragment Offset field identifies the fragment location, relative to the beginning of the original unfragmented datagram. Fragments are counted in units of 8 octets. The
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fragmentation strategy is designed so than an unfragmented datagram has all zero fragmentation information (MF = 0, fragment offset = 0). If an internet datagram is fragmented, its data portion must be broken on 8 octet boundaries.
This format allows 2**13 = 8192 fragments of 8 octets each for a total of 65,536 octets. Note that this is consistent with the the datagram total length field (of course, the header is counted in the total length and not in the fragments).
When fragmentation occurs, some options are copied, but others