Loopback

Commonly known as localhost. You’ve might’ve seen it on a shirt of a geek as its numeric counterpart 127.0.0.1. Packets through this interface will never leave the your network card.

Unicast

The packets will be destined for a specific IP address.

Multicast

The router will send the packets to multiple locations at the same time. Addresses in the range 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 are reserved for multicast. 244.0.0.0 – 224.0.0.255 are link-local addresses that cannot escape to the internet.

Limited Broadcast

Packets are sent to every computer on the same subnet. Example is 255.255.255.255

Directed Broadcast

Packets are sent to a specific subnet then broadcast across all hosts.

RFC 1918 / Private Network

The internet will not route these addresses. A NAT is normally used to convert it to a routable address prior to being sent.

  • 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
  • 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
  • 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255