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CIDR Block Notation

CIDR Block Notation

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CIDR Block Notations
CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) is a method for creating
additional addresses on the Internet. CIDR reduces the burden on
Internet routers by aggregating routes so that one IP address represents
thousands of addresses that are serviced by a major backbone provider.
All packets sent to any of those addresses are sent to the ISP such as
UUNET or Level 3. In 1990, there were about 2,000 routes on the
Internet. Five years later, there were more than 30,000. Without CIDR,
the routers would not have been able to support the increasing number of
Internet sites. 

On a practical level this allows ISPs to easily breakdown the amount of
IP addresses they allocate to their business customers. For example the
CIDR address 63.80.246.8/29 indicates a block of 8 IP addresses,
starting with the 63.80.246.8 and continuing through .15. Using CIDR
notation, the larger routers on the Internet to not need to know this,
instead they only need to know that 63.80.0.0 is part of UUNET's
network, UUNET knows that anything belonging to 63.80.246.0 belongs to
Version12, Version12 knows that anything belonging to 63.80.246.8/29
belongs to your company, and your router knows that 63.80.246.12 is your
computer. 


CIDR
prefix-length  Dotted-Decimal  # Individual 
Addresses # of Classful
Networks 
/13 255.248.0.0 512K 8 Bs or 2048 Cs 
/14 255.252.0.0 256K 4 Bs or 1024 Cs 
/15 255.254.0.0 128K 2 Bs or 512 Cs 
/16 255.255.0.0 64K 1 B or 256 Cs 
/17 255.255.128.0 32K 128 Cs 
/18 255.255.192.0 16K 64 Cs 
/19 255.255.224.0 8K 32 Cs 
/20 255.255.240.0 4K 16 Cs 
/21 255.255.248.0 2K 8 Cs 
/22 255.255.252.0 1K 4 Cs 
/23 255.255.254.0 512 2 Cs 
/24 255.255.255.0 256 1 C 
/25 255.255.255.128  128 1/2 C 
/26 255.255.255.192 64 1/4 C 
/27 255.255.255.224 32 1/8 C 
/28 255.255.255.240 16 1/16 C 
/29 255.255.255.248 8 1/32 C 
/30 255.255.255.252 4 1/64 C 
/31 255.255.255.254 2 1/128 C 
/32 255.255.255.255 1 1/256 C 


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