How Network mask(or bits) works

[ravipoli]

Hello All,

We are using Helsinki version of Service Now,

Can anybody explain how Network mask(or bits) IP Network works while scheduling DIscovery schedule IP Range ?

For eg : Network IP - 12.0.0.0 and Network mask(or bits) = 16

What are all the IP Addresses scanned while discovery schedule starts scanning ?

How many possible IP Addresses will be scanned with this configuration ?

Thanks

Ravi

[stefan_ojeblom · Accepted solution]

Hello Ravi,

Take a look at this wiki article;

Classful network - Wikipedia

[Chuck Tomasi]

Hi Ravi,

There are plenty of good resources (including some YouTube videos) out there on this topic.

In short, each number in an IP address refers to 8 bits of information (256 possible combinations 0-255). The subnet mask is a "separator" of the network portion from the device address portion.

My home uses 192.168.1.0 as the network with a SM of 8 (or 255.255.255.0) That means the network is 24 of those bits and I can use the other 8 for devices - sort of. I cannot use .0 or .255 as those have special meaning in this case.

For your case, 12.0.0.0 is the network address and your subnet mask is 16, which means you can have 2^16 devices (sort of again) or 65,536 devices available and the left-most digits available for your network.

[ravipoli]

Thank you Chuck

[Chuck Tomasi]

You are welcome. Thank you for participating in the community.