I'm new to networking and I'm doing my best to understand how things work. I do have a problem in understanding IP scheme idea (even though obsolete), more specifically, their structure, distribution by organizations and usage.
To my understanding, we have 2^32 addresses that can be used through the protocol IP and the distribution of these addresses is handled by certain organizations (IANA, ICANN, RIRs...).
1. Understanding scheme and distribution of IP addresses
If an organization wanted to join the internet, it had to request an unique IP address. At the beginning it was considered that the 2^32 IP addresses will not be used by people but organizations. Due to this, they organized the addresses in specific categories, distributing to organization IP address(es) from a certain category based on the size of the organization.
IANA had to choose a specific pattern in the address to easily identify the magnitude of the IP address hosts and networks. Therefore, they said let's use the first bit of the first octet as the identifier of the IP category/class to understand its magnitude. This resulted in the range of each IP category:
- CLASS A: 255.x.x.x (1.x.x.x - 127.x.x.x)
- Through this category, we can distribute up to 2^6 IP addresses so each organization will be able to use 2^24 addresses in it's topology.
- CLASS B: 255.255.x.x (128.0.x.x - 191.255.x.x)
- Through this category, we can distribute up to 2^14 IP addresses so each organization will able to use 2^16 addresses in it's topology.
- CLASS C: 255.255.255.x (191.0.0.x - 223.255.255.x)
- Through this category, we can distribute up to 2^21 IP addresses so each organization will able to use 2^8 addresses in it's topology.
!Some address space from each class has been reserved for private use only in order to not conflict with the public addresses usage.
To my understanding, if an entity needs an IP address, it will simply be given an IP address from a specific class. For example: Class C 191.1.1.x, meaning that it can use this IP address and all its range 191.1.1.0 to 191.1.1.255.
Is this correct ?
2. Usage of the IP address in networking / CIDR
A device (layer 3) was previously able to route a packet to destination based on the network info from the first byte of the IP address. This was the initial paradigm which now is NO longer used as we moved to CIDR scheme, limiting an IP network only by the first byte wasn't scalable.
As of now, we have requested an IP address and we received network 11.1.1.x for the use in the organization.
- As classes are no longer used (hence checking first byte), who decides/dictates what's the subnet of this IP that we received ?
- If organization has IP 11.1.1.x , what does it stop it from subnetting it in any shape and mode and be public accessible in internet ?
- In the modern intern, do most of the private networks use the exact RFC 1918 private IP ranges ?
- In the modern internet, if an organization receives the 11.1.1.x address, upon deciding (1) the class, does the remaining address space is normally used to configure layer 3 devices so it can take advantage of using multiple nodes with public IP addresses behind different LANs ?
@EDIT: I'm not planning on using IP classes but to understand how it began and how it works in the modern times. Thanks in advance for your help