Tag Archives: CIDR

CIDR Notation Host Count

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Notice: The following post was originally published on another website. As the post is no longer accessible, it is being republished here on tommymaynard.com. The post was originally published on January 15, 2019.

Late last year, I spent some time studying for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Solutions Architect — Associate exam. In doing so, I briefly ended up covering CIDR again and the two-step math problem required to determine the number of available hosts in a CIDR IP address range.

As a recap, it works this way. Let’s consider the largest VPC (Virtual Private Cloud), or a virtual network, one can define in AWS. That’s 10.0.0.0/16. The way to determine the number of available host IPs is to subtract 16 (as indicated by the /16) from 32 — a constant value. In this example, that total is also 16. We then raise 2 (the base — another constant) to the power of 16 (the exponent/our difference), which results in 65,536 possible hosts. Because PowerShell can often distract me from AWS, let’s take a look at a small function I quickly wrote out — yes, during my AWS study time — to do the conversion for me.

Function Get-CidrHostCount {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory)]
        [ValidateRange(1,32)]
        $Cidr
    )

    Begin {
    } # End Begin.

    Process {
        "Number of hosts for /$Cidr`: $([System.Math]::Pow(2,32-$Cidr))"
    } # End Process.

    End {
    } # End End.
} # End Function: Get-CidrHostCount.

When invoked, the above Get-CidrHostCount function will accept any numeric value from 1 through 32 and determine how many hosts the CIDR range would allow. This 1 to 32 value is equivalent to the number after the forward-slash in the CIDR notation. Do notice our two-step math problem. The System namespace’s Math class includes a method called Pow. This method accepts two values. The first value is our base again — 2 — and the second number is the exponent. In the function, we use the constant value of 32 and subtract the CIDR value that’s passed in when the function is invoked. These two values are then used to complete the calculation.

The below examples display a few results but eventually return all the possible results.

PS> Get-CidrHostCount -Cidr 16

Number of hosts for /16: 65536

PS> Get-CidrHostCount -Cidr 20

Number of hosts for /20: 4096

PS> Get-CidrHostCount -Cidr 24

Number of hosts for /24: 256

PS> Get-CidrHostCount -Cidr 28

Number of hosts for /28: 16

PS> 1..32 | ForEach-Object {
>> Get-CidrHostCount -Cidr $_
>> }

Number of hosts for /1: 2147483648
Number of hosts for /2: 1073741824
Number of hosts for /3: 536870912
Number of hosts for /4: 268435456
Number of hosts for /5: 134217728
Number of hosts for /6: 67108864
Number of hosts for /7: 33554432
Number of hosts for /8: 16777216
Number of hosts for /9: 8388608
Number of hosts for /10: 4194304
Number of hosts for /11: 2097152
Number of hosts for /12: 1048576
Number of hosts for /13: 524288
Number of hosts for /14: 262144
Number of hosts for /15: 131072
Number of hosts for /16: 65536
Number of hosts for /17: 32768
Number of hosts for /18: 16384
Number of hosts for /19: 8192
Number of hosts for /20: 4096
Number of hosts for /21: 2048
Number of hosts for /22: 1024
Number of hosts for /23: 512
Number of hosts for /24: 256
Number of hosts for /25: 128
Number of hosts for /26: 64
Number of hosts for /27: 32
Number of hosts for /28: 16
Number of hosts for /29: 8
Number of hosts for /30: 4
Number of hosts for /31: 2
Number of hosts for /32: 1

Before we really wrap it up here, let’s change the results as many of us would prefer to see them. Here’s a mildly modified version of the function and the last above command run again.

Function Get-CidrHostCount {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory)]
        [ValidateRange(1,32)]
        $Cidr
    )

    Begin {
    } # End Begin.

    Process {
        "Number of hosts for /$Cidr`: $('{0:N0}' -f [System.Math]::Pow(2,32-$Cidr))"
    } # End Process.

    End {
    } # End End.
} # End Function: Get-CidrHostCount.

PS> 1..32 | ForEach-Object {
>> Get-CidrHostCount -Cidr $_
>> }

Number of hosts for /1: 2,147,483,648
Number of hosts for /2: 1,073,741,824
Number of hosts for /3: 536,870,912
Number of hosts for /4: 268,435,456
Number of hosts for /5: 134,217,728
Number of hosts for /6: 67,108,864
Number of hosts for /7: 33,554,432
Number of hosts for /8: 16,777,216
Number of hosts for /9: 8,388,608
Number of hosts for /10: 4,194,304
Number of hosts for /11: 2,097,152
Number of hosts for /12: 1,048,576
Number of hosts for /13: 524,288
Number of hosts for /14: 262,144
Number of hosts for /15: 131,072
Number of hosts for /16: 65,536
Number of hosts for /17: 32,768
Number of hosts for /18: 16,384
Number of hosts for /19: 8,192
Number of hosts for /20: 4,096
Number of hosts for /21: 2,048
Number of hosts for /22: 1,024
Number of hosts for /23: 512
Number of hosts for /24: 256
Number of hosts for /25: 128
Number of hosts for /26: 64
Number of hosts for /27: 32
Number of hosts for /28: 16
Number of hosts for /29: 8
Number of hosts for /30: 4
Number of hosts for /31: 2
Number of hosts for /32: 1

And that’s it — numbers I can actually read. And yes, I finally did get back to studying for my exam.