Private Ip Addresses - NETGEAR PS121 User Manual

User Manual for the NETGEAR PS121 Mini Print Server
Table 4-2. Netmask Formats
255.255.255.252
255.255.255.254
255.255.255.255
NETGEAR strongly recommends that you configure all hosts on a LAN segment to use the same
netmask for the following reasons:
• So that hosts recognize local IP broadcast packets.
When a device broadcasts to its segment neighbors, it uses a destination address of the local
network address with all ones for the host address. In order for this scheme to work, all devices
on the segment must agree on which bits comprise the host address.
• So that a local router or bridge recognizes which addresses are local and which are remote.

Private IP Addresses

If your networks are isolated from the Internet (for example, only between your two branch
offices), you can assign any IP addresses to the hosts without problems. However, the IANA has
reserved the following three blocks of IP addresses specifically for private networks:
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
NETGEAR recommends that you choose your private network number from this range.
NETGEAR products default to 192.168.0.xxx.
Regardless of your particular situation, do not create an arbitrary IP address; always follow the
guidelines explained here. For more information about address assignment, refer to RFC 1597,
Address Allocation for Private Internets, and RFC 1466, Guidelines for Management of IP
Address Space. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) publishes RFCs on its Web site at
www.ietf.org.
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Understanding IP Addresses