What is Subnet Mask?

By Scott Seong
An IP address has two components, the network address and the host address. A subnet
mask separates the IP address into the network and host addresses (<network><host>).
Subnetting further divides the host part of an IP address into a subnet and host address
(<network><subnet><host>). It is called a subnet mask because it is used to identify
network address of an IP address by perfoming bitwise AND operation on the netmask.
A Subnet mask is a 32-bit number that masks an IP address, and divides the IP address
into network address and host address. Subnet Mask is made by setting network bits to all
"1"s and setting host bits to all "0"s. Within a given network, two host addresses are
reserved for special purpose. The "0" address is assigned a network address and "255" is
assigned to a broadcast address, and they cannot be assigned to a host.
Examples of commonly used netmasks for classed networks are 8-bits (Class A), 16-bits
(Class B) and 24-bits (Class C), and classless networks are as follows:
Class Address
CIDR /4
CIDR /5
CIDR /6
CIDR /7
A

/8

CIDR /9
CIDR /10
CIDR /11
CIDR /12
CIDR /13
CIDR /14
CIDR /15

# of Hosts

Netmask (Binary)
11110000 00000000 00000000
240,435,456
00000000
11111000 00000000 00000000
134,217,728
00000000
11111100 00000000 00000000
67,108,864
00000000
11111110 00000000 00000000
33,554,432
00000000
11111111 00000000 00000000
16,777,216
00000000
11111111 10000000 00000000
8,388,608
00000000
11111111 11000000 00000000
4,194,304
00000000
11111111 11100000 00000000
2,097,152
00000000
11111111 11110000 00000000
1,048,576
00000000
11111111 11111000 00000000
524,288
00000000
11111111 11111100 00000000
262,144
00000000
11111111 11111110 00000000
131,072
00000000

Netmask (Decimal)
240.0.0.0
248.0.0.0
252.0.0.0
254.0.0.0
255.0.0.0
255.128.0.0
255.192.0.0
255.224.0.0
255.240.0.0
255.248.0.0
255.252.0.0
255.254.0.0

/16

65,534

CIDR /17

32,768

CIDR /18

16,384

CIDR /19

8,192

CIDR /20

4,096

CIDR /21

2,048

CIDR /22

1,024

CIDR /23

512

/24

256

CIDR /25

128

CIDR /26

64

CIDR /27

32

CIDR /28

16

CIDR /29

CIDR /30

11111111 11111111 00000000

00000000
11111111 11111111 10000000
00000000
11111111 11111111 11000000
00000000
11111111 11111111 11100000
00000000
11111111 11111111 11110000
00000000
11111111 11111111 11111000
00000000
11111111 11111111 11111100
00000000
11111111 11111111 11111110
00000000
11111111 11111111 11111111
00000000
11111111 11111111 11111111
10000000
11111111 11111111 11111111
11000000
11111111 11111111 11111111
11100000
11111111 11111111 11111111
11110000
11111111 11111111 11111111
11111000
11111111 11111111 11111111
11111100

255.255.0.0
255.255.128.0
255.255.192.0
255.255.224.0
255.255.240.0
255.255.248.0
255.255.252.0
255.255.254.0
255.255.255.0
255.255.255.128
255.255.255.192
255.255.255.224
255.255.255.240
255.255.255.248
255.255.255.252

Subnetting an IP network is to separate a big network into smaller multiple networks for
reorganization and security purposes. All nodes (hosts) in a subnetwork see all packets
transmitted by any node in a network. Performance of a network is adversely affected
under heavy traffic load due to collisions and retransmissions.
Applying a subnet mask to an IP address separates network address from host address.
The network bits are represented by the 1's in the mask, and the host bits are represented
by 0's. Performing a bitwise logical AND operation on the IP address with the subnet
mask produces the network address. For example, applying the Class C subnet mask to
our IP address 216.3.128.12 produces the following network address:

IP:
1101 1000 . 0000 0011 . 1000 0000 . 0000 1100
Mask: 1111 1111 . 1111 1111 . 1111 1111 . 0000 0000
--------------------------------------------1101 1000 . 0000 0011 . 1000 0000 . 0000 0000

(216.003.128.012)
(255.255.255.000)
(216.003.128.000)

Subnetting Network
Here is another scenario where subnetting is needed. Pretend that a web host with a Class
C network needs to divide the network so that parts of the network can be leased to its
customers. Let's assume that a host has a network address of 216.3.128.0 (as shown in the
example above). Let's say that we're going to divide the network into 2 and dedicate the
first half to itself, and the other half to its customers.
216 .
216 .

3 . 128 . (0000 0000)

3 . 128 . (1000 0000)

(1st half assigned to the web host)

(2nd half assigned to the customers)

The web host will have the subnet mask of 216.3.128.128 (/25). Now, we'll further divide
the 2nd half into eight block of 16 IP addresses.
216 .
3 . 128 . (1000 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1001 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1010 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1011 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1100 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1101 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1110 0000)
216 .
3 . 128 . (1111 0000)
----------------------------255 . 255 . 255 . (1111 0000)

Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer
Customer

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

---------

Gets
Gets
Gets
Gets
Gets
Gets
Gets
Gets

16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16

IPs
IPs
IPs
IPs
IPs
IPs
IPs
IPs

(14
(14
(14
(14
(14
(14
(14
(14

usable)
usable)
usable)
usable)
usable)
usable)
usable)
usable)

(Subnet mask of 255.255.255.240)

CIDR - Classless Inter Domain Routing

Classless InterDomain Routing (CIDR) was invented to keep the Internet from running
out of IP Addresses. The IPv4, a 32-bit, addresses have a limit of 4,294,967,296 (232)
unique IP addresses. The classful address scheme (Class A, B and C) of allocating IP
addresses in 8-bit increments can be very wasteful. With classful addressing scheme, a
minimum number of IP addresses allocated to an organization is 256 (Class C). Giving
256 IP addresses to an organization only requiring 15 IP addresses is wasteful. Also, an
organization requiring more than 256 IP addresses (let's say 1,000 IP addresses) is
assigned a Class B, which allocates 65,536 IP addresses. Similarly, an organization
requiring more than 65,636 (65,634 usable IPs) is assigned a Class A network, which
allocates 16,777,216 (16.7 Million) IP addresses. This type of address allocation is very
wasteful.

With CIDR, a network of IP addresses is allocated in 1-bit increments as opposed to 8bits in classful network. The use of a CIDR notated address can easily represent classful
addresses (Class A = /8, Class B = /16, and Class C = /24). The number next to the slash
(i.e. /8) represents the number of bits assigned to the network address. The example
shown above can be illustrated with CIDR as follows:
216.3.128.12, with subnet mask of 255.255.255.128 is written as
216.3.128.12/25
Similarly, the 8 customers with the block of 16 IP addresses can be
written as:
216.3.128.129/28, 216.3.128.130/28, and etc.

With an introduction of CIDR addressing scheme, IP addresses are more efficiently

allocated to ISPs and customers; and hence there is less risk of IP addresses running out
anytime soon. For detailed specification on CIDR, please review RFC 1519. With
introduction of additional gaming, medical, applicance and telecom devices requiring
static IP addresses in addition to more than 6.5 billion (July 2006 est.) world population,
the IPv4 addresses with CIDR addressing scheme will eventually run out. To solve
shortage of IPv4 addresses, the IPv6 (128-bit) address scheme was introduced in 1993.