Subnet masks – ZyXEL Communications NBG-419N User Manual

Page 238

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Appendix B IP Addresses and Subnetting

NBG-419N User’s Guide

238

The following figure shows an example IP address in which the first three octets
(192.168.1) are the network number, and the fourth octet (16) is the host ID.

Figure 141 Network Number and Host ID

How much of the IP address is the network number and how much is the host ID
varies according to the subnet mask.

Subnet Masks

A subnet mask is used to determine which bits are part of the network number,
and which bits are part of the host ID (using a logical AND operation). The term
“subnet” is short for “sub-network”.

A subnet mask has 32 bits. If a bit in the subnet mask is a “1” then the
corresponding bit in the IP address is part of the network number. If a bit in the
subnet mask is “0” then the corresponding bit in the IP address is part of the host
ID.

The following example shows a subnet mask identifying the network number (in
bold text) and host ID of an IP address (192.168.1.2 in decimal).

Table 81 Subnet Mask - Identifying Network Number

1ST

OCTET:

(192)

2ND

OCTET:

(168)

3RD

OCTET:

(1)

4TH

OCTET

(2)

IP Address (Binary)

11000000

10101000

00000001

00000010

Subnet Mask (Binary)

11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000

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