What are the valid public ip address ranges

There are a number of lists on the web that define all valid public ip addresses ranges but they don't seem to be very accurate.

The most common list Ive found is show below. This list however doesn't include addresses in 191.236.x.x even though there are public web servers in that range.

Is there a definitive and correct list?

1.0.0.0 - 9.255.255.255
11.0.0.0 - 126.255.255.255
129.0.0.0 - 169.253.255.255
169.255.0.0 - 172.15.255.255
172.32.0.0 - 191.0.1.255
192.0.3.0 - 192.88.98.255
192.88.100.0 - 192.167.255.255
192.169.0.0 - 198.17.255.255
198.20.0.0 - 223.255.255.255

PeterJ

Posted 2016-03-16T23:38:47.947

Reputation: 104

What has your research shown. The list you have isn't complete. – Ramhound – 2016-03-17T02:08:22.260

1Thats the point of the question – PeterJ – 2016-03-24T21:45:49.060

Answers

IANA provides standards on this subject. For IPv4, here is what they have in their "special purpose address registry". Meaning, for our purposes, anything in these address blocks shouldn't be assigned because they shouldn't be routable "publicly".

0.0.0.0/8
10.0.0.0/8
100.64.0.0/10
127.0.0.0/8
169.254.0.0/16
172.16.0.0/12
192.0.0.0/24
192.0.0.0/29
192.0.0.8/32
192.0.0.9/32
192.0.0.170/32
192.0.0.171/32
192.0.2.0/24
192.31.196.0/24
192.52.193.0/24
192.88.99.0/24
192.168.0.0/16
192.175.48.0/24
198.18.0.0/15
198.51.100.0/24
203.0.113.0/24
240.0.0.0/4
255.255.255.255/32

(Edit, also)
224.0.0.0/24
239.0.0.0/8

This is more consistent with the example you provided above.

If you don't understand CIDR notation, you can convert them to ranges here.

BrianC

Posted 2016-03-16T23:38:47.947

Reputation: 681

You forgot the multicast addresses, which, from a practical perspective, cannot be used on the Internet. 224.0.0.0/4. – Ron Maupin – 2016-03-17T00:27:55.583

@RonMaupin That's true, thanks. I added that (as well as 239.0.0.0/8) to my post. – BrianC – 2016-03-17T00:42:36.137

Also, there are IPv4 bogon lists which many ISPs use to block addresses from being routed on the Internet, e.g. http://www.team-cymru.org/Services/Bogons/fullbogons-ipv4.txt "A bogon prefix is a route that should never appear in the Internet routing table. A packet routed over the public Internet (not including over VPNs or other tunnels) should never have a source address in a bogon range."

– Ron Maupin – 2016-03-17T00:46:11.400

Well...I guess it really boils down to whether or not you consider valid "public" ranges to be not assigned, or not reserved. – BrianC – 2016-03-17T00:50:15.483

Well, from a practical perspective, if the carriers won't route to or from those addresses, are they really valid public addresses? I guess it's where you come down on that. – Ron Maupin – 2016-03-17T00:51:51.010

2Thanks for the response but the point of question was to provide a reference for the valid ranges not the exclusions – PeterJ – 2016-03-24T21:49:06.843

@PeterJ Did you ever find an answer to your original question? I too am looking for the answer. – fire_water – 2017-08-04T01:02:47.140

@PeterJ: Valid ranges are simply "everything minus the exclusions". They are not explicitly documented anywhere, because such a list can be easily computed from an exclusion list – so there is no sense in maintaining it separately. When IANA says "these ranges aren't public", they sometimes even explicitly state that "everything else is public" (at least they do for IPv6). – user1686 – 2018-09-19T18:42:04.527

1In the context of this question it doesn't make sense to list nets 192.0.0.0 with a bigger netmask than 24 here, because they are included in 192.0.0.0/24. The IANA list assignes special names for these subnets, so it makes sense there. But here it's just a list. – David Ongaro – 2019-03-19T16:40:22.303

@grawity - I love comments like this. This is why you get gags like... how many IT guys does it take to change a light bulb. The next time you are in an exam and the question states how many usable IP addresses in a /24 subnet, see if they mark you correctly if your answer is - 255 minus the unusable ones. Answer the question, don't query the person on how i why they want the information. – PeterJ – 2019-06-21T00:46:35.210

1.0.0.0-9.255.255.255
11.0.0.0-100.63.255.255
100.128.0.0-126.255.255.255
128.0.0.0-169.253.255.255
169.255.0.0-172.15.255.255
172.32.0.0-191.255.255.255
192.0.1.0/24
192.0.3.0-192.88.98.255
192.88.100.0-192.167.255.255
192.169.0.0-198.17.255.255
198.20.0.0-198.51.99.255
198.51.101.0-203.0.112.255
203.0.114.0-223.255.255.255

hmuller

Posted 2016-03-16T23:38:47.947

Reputation: 1

-1

All IP address from 1 to 191 excluding the RFC1918 private addresses below are assigned for Public IPs.:

RFC1918 - Private address alocation:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

Muhammad Riaz

Posted 2016-03-16T23:38:47.947

Reputation: 1

1Not all of them. (100.64.0.0/10 for example?) And the public allocations don't end at 191, they continue all the way to 223. – user1686 – 2018-09-19T14:29:59.197