SOLVED: What Are The Loopback Addresses in IPv6 IPv4 and What Are All The Other Special Use IP Ranges?

If you are working on a network you are going to see some IPv6 traffic and it can get quite confusing.  A “loopback” is an address that causes the traffic to be sent to the same interface is was sent out on on the localhost.

Usage of loopback addresses are particularly popular with developers and anyone in IT performing network tests.  For instance, if you think your Network Card is failing you can try:

PING 127.0.0.1

and if you don’t see a reply with a TIME<1ms, your card or TCP/IP stack likely has a problem.  If you are on a PC that supports IPv6 (all Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista PC’s), you can try the same test using:

PING ::1

Below are all of the loopback IP addresses:

• IPv6 = 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1
• IPv6 = 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
• IPv6 = 0:0:0:0:0:ffff:7f00:1
• IPv6 = ::1
• IPv6 = ::
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• IPv4 = 127.0.0.1 to 127.255.255.255

Below is a table of all the ‘Special Use’ IP Ranges:

0.0.0.0/8             “This” Network

10.0.0.0/8            Private-Use Networks

14.0.0.0/8            Public-Data Networks

24.0.0.0/8            Cable Television Networks

39.0.0.0/8            Reserved, subject to allocation

127.0.0.0/8          Loopback

128.0.0.0/16        Reserved, subject to allocation

169.254.0.0/16    Link Local

172.16.0.0/12      Private-Use Networks

191.255.0.0/16    Reserved, subject to allocation

192.0.0.0/24        Reserved but subject to allocation

192.0.2.0/24        Test-Net

192.88.99.0/24    6to4 Relay Anycast

192.168.0.0/16    Private-Use Networks

198.18.0.0/15        Network Interconnect Device Benchmark Testing

223.255.255.0/24     Reserved, subject to allocation

224.0.0.0/4          Multicast, commonly used in multiplayer simulations and gaming and for video distribution.

240.0.0.0/4          Reserved for Future Use

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