What is CIDR?
CIDR — Classless Inter-Domain Routing — is the notation we use to describe a contiguous range of IP addresses. 10.0.0.0/24 means "the 256 addresses starting at 10.0.0.0," because the /24 says the first 24 bits are the network and the remaining 8 are host space.
How to read the results
- Network address — the first address in the block. By convention, this isn't assignable to a host on classful IPv4 segments.
- Broadcast address (IPv4 only) — the last address. Also not assignable to a host; sending to it reaches every device on the segment.
- First/Last host — the range you can actually hand out to devices.
- Netmask — the same prefix length expressed as a dotted-quad mask.
/24is255.255.255.0. - Wildcard mask — the bitwise inverse of the netmask. Cisco ACLs use it.
- Usable hosts — total addresses minus 2 (network + broadcast) for IPv4 on
/30and shorter./31point-to-point links use both endpoints (RFC 3021)./32is a single host. IPv6 has no broadcast, so every address in a prefix is usable.
Common subnet sizes
| Prefix | Mask | Usable hosts | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
/30 | 255.255.255.252 | 2 | Point-to-point WAN link |
/29 | 255.255.255.248 | 6 | Small office segment |
/28 | 255.255.255.240 | 14 | Small LAN |
/24 | 255.255.255.0 | 254 | Standard home/office subnet |
/22 | 255.255.252.0 | 1022 | Mid-size office |
/16 | 255.255.0.0 | 65,534 | Large enterprise |
/8 | 255.0.0.0 | 16,777,214 | Legacy "Class A" allocations |
