Provided an IP address and a Subnet Mask, we can use binary conversion to find the Network Address, total usable IP addresses and range and the the Broadcast Address.
A Network Address looks like this or something similar : 192.168.1.0/24
The CIDR tells us how many binary digits are turned on in the subnet mask.
Just by looking at the CIDR we know that the Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.0. You can refer to this page for more info on CIDR.
We can find the CIDR by counting the number of bits are are turned on.
Let’s find more about the Subnet Mask and it’s purpose.
Let’s use 192.168.25.55 as our given IP. What would be the Network Address?
Next using AND equation(0 + 0 = 0, 0 + 1 = 0, 1 + 0 = 0, 1 + 1 = 1) we can figure what will be our network address 3rd octet.
Ok now, since we have a special type of Subnet Mask here, as the third octet is not 255, we have limitations on the number of usable hosts we can have. We will need a subnet wildcard. Just subtract 255.255.255.255 with your current Subnet Mask and it will give you the wildcard.
This tells us our network will have a range of 192.168.0.0 – 1923.168.31.255. 0-31 is 32 total numbers and 0-255 is 256 total numbers. 32 * 256 = 8192 total hosts. Since we need a host for our network (192.168.0.0) and our broadcast(192.168.31.255) we subtract 2 from the total hosts which gives us a total of 8190 usable hosts in a range of 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.31.254.
It’s worth mentioning, sometimes, the broadcast address won’t always be ending with 255. Let’s check it out with this example:
