Network Address Types

GaussDB offers data types to store IPv4, IPv6, and MAC addresses.

It is better to use these types instead of plain text types to store network addresses, because these types offer input error checking and specialized operators and functions (see Network Address Functions and Operators).

**Table 1** Network address types
Name	Storage Space	Description
cidr	7 or 19 bytes	IPv4 or IPv6 networks
inet	7 or 19 bytes	IPv4 or IPv6 hosts and networks
macaddr	6 bytes	MAC address

When sorting inet or cidr data types, IPv4 addresses will always sort before IPv6 addresses, including IPv4 addresses encapsulated or mapped to IPv6 addresses, such as ::10.2.3.4 or ::ffff:10.4.3.2.

cidr

The cidr type (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) holds an IPv4 or IPv6 network address. The format for specifying networks is address/y where address is the network represented as an IPv4 or IPv6 address, and y is the number of bits in the netmask. If y is omitted, it is calculated using assumptions from the older classful network numbering system, except it will be at least large enough to include all of the octets written in the input.

**Table 2** cidr type input examples
cidr Input	cidr Output	abbrev(cidr)
192.168.100.128/25	192.168.100.128/25	192.168.100.128/25
192.168/24	192.168.0.0/24	192.168.0/24
192.168/25	192.168.0.0/25	192.168.0.0/25
192.168.1	192.168.1.0/24	192.168.1/24
192.168	192.168.0.0/24	192.168.0/24
10.1.2	10.1.2.0/24	10.1.2/24
10.1	10.1.0.0/16	10.1/16
10	10.0.0.0/8	10/8
10.1.2.3/32	10.1.2.3/32	10.1.2.3/32
2001:4f8:3:ba::/64	2001:4f8:3:ba::/64	2001:4f8:3:ba::/64
2001:4f8:3:ba:2e0:81ff:fe22:d1f1/128	2001:4f8:3:ba:2e0:81ff:fe22:d1f1/128	2001:4f8:3:ba:2e0:81ff:fe22:d1f1
::ffff:127.0.0.0/120	::ffff:127.0.0.0/120	::ffff:127.0.0.0/120
::ffff:127.0.0.0/128	::ffff:127.0.0.0/128	::ffff:127.0.0.0/128

inet

The inet type holds an IPv4 or IPv6 host address, and optionally its subnet, all in one field. The subnet is represented by the number of network address bits present in the host address (the "netmask"). If the netmask is 32 and the address is an IPv4 address, then the value does not indicate a subnet, only a single host. In IPv6, because the address length is 128 bits, 128 bits specify a unique host address.

The input format for this type is address/y where address is an IPv4 or IPv6 address and y is the number of bits in the netmask. If /y is omitted, the subnet mask is 32 for an IPv4 address and 128 for an IPv6 address, and the value represents just a single host. On display, the /y portion is suppressed if the netmask specifies a single host.

The essential difference between the inet and cidr data types is that inet accepts values with nonzero bits to the right of the netmask, whereas cidr does not.

macaddr

The macaddr type stores MAC addresses, known for example from Ethernet card hardware addresses (although MAC addresses are used for other purposes as well). Input is accepted in the following formats:

'08:00:2b:01:02:03'
'08-00-2b-01-02-03'
'08002b:010203'
'08002b-010203'
'0800.2b01.0203'
'08002b010203'

These examples would all specify the same address. Upper and lower cases are accepted for the digits a through f. Output is always in the first of the forms shown.

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