HI peeps, i have a couple of questions about IP address that is driving me crazy, i will try to explain them the best way i can [if not ...:( ] 1) what is the reason behind subnetting and why do people use it, If your ISP give you one IP address how can you possibly subnet your IP address without affecting other on the web (after all we all need a unique IP). I understand that organization do subnet their IP address to increase security and preformace but dont they use Private IP address and not public Address???? My second question is also about subnetting. Why did the folks who create IP address develop Classes (A, B, C, D and E) with submask. Agian i understand that they need to seprate host and network portion of the IP but couldn't they just create a Class A with the first octect dedicated to network portion of the IP? wouldnt this method conserv more IP for the future rather than having unchangable 16 or 24, Class B and Class C respectively-- octet for network ID? I would give an example for both my questions but the post will be too long as it already is.:) Please can someone answer my simple questions. thankxx Ever Wonder Y??

I'm sure others can give you more detailed info, but I think I can answer these to your satisfaction. Also, here is a page with a LOT of details about networking and subnetting: http://www.aboutdebian.com/network.htm. It's a page about setting up Linux for networking but most of the info is general. Answer #1: If your ISP gives you one IP address, then it is impossible to subnet that IP. Some companies will get a block of IP addresses and *can* subnet them if they choose. If you are given 1 IP address you can use a router to create an internal network. You can then create a subnet within the internal network, but all traffic to the internet still goes through that 1 public IP that your ISP provides. 2. The page I referenced above can explain more about how the different classes and the subnetting work and should provide insight intot he Why. Remember though that the internet will be transitioning to a 6 octet IP address in the near future. XP already supports this - turned off by default. Michael J

Thankx Michael The link that u gave out really cleared out some of my thought, its clearly asnwered my first question about public and private IP and the reason why people would subnet public IP rather and not private IP (cuz of the old days... we should claim those public IP back.. lol) But i am still not sure why they created CLAss C and even B with such Network portion thus limiting the number of hosts ( i guess it has to do with geographical areas ) Ever Wonder Y??