IP Addressing and Subnetting

Addressing is the part of networking that tells devices where they are and whether a target is local or needs to go through a router.

Subnet Notation

192.168.1.0/24
 
/24 means the first 24 bits are the network, last 8 are hosts.
Usable range: 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254  (254 hosts)
 
.0   = network address (not assignable)
.1   = typically the router/gateway
.255 = broadcast address (not assignable)

Example Homelab Address Scheme

192.168.1.0/24
 
.1    ASUS Router (gateway)
.20   Proxmox host
.25   OpenWebUI container
.26   Ollama container
.30   NAS / backup storage
.50-.254  DHCP pool (dynamic devices)

That kind of predictable layout makes troubleshooting much easier because you can infer what a machine is supposed to be just from the address range.

If .30 is the shared NAS or backup role in your lab, TrueNAS SCALE On Proxmox and TrueNAS Shares And Proxmox Integration are the storage-side follow-ups that match this addressing pattern.

IPv6

IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses instead of IPv4's 32-bit space, which solves address exhaustion.

Example: 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334

For many homelabs, IPv4 is still enough. If you do enable IPv6, dual stack is the normal transition path so both IPv4 and IPv6 stay available.