Subnet masks – ZyXEL Communications XGS-4526 User Manual

Page 420

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Appendix A IP Addresses and Subnetting

XGS-4526 User’s Guide

420

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 237 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 155 IP Address Network Number and Host ID Example

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

Network Number

11000000 10101000 00000001

Host ID

00000010

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