/3 subnet (224.0.0.0)

A /3 network has 536,870,912 addresses, of which 536,870,910 can be given to hosts after the network and broadcast addresses. A huge block covering a large share of the IPv4 address space, seen in routing and broad firewall rules.

CIDR notation
/3
Subnet mask
224.0.0.0
Wildcard mask
31.255.255.255
Binary mask
11100000.00000000.00000000.00000000
Total addresses
536,870,912
Usable hosts
536,870,910
Example network
0.0.0.0/3
Example usable range
0.0.0.1 – 31.255.255.254
/24 networks in a /3
2,097,152

Calculate a /3 for your own address

In firewall rules and investigations

A /3 rule matches every address from 0.0.0.0 to 31.255.255.255. In Cisco ACLs the same range is written with the wildcard mask 31.255.255.255. When an alert names an IP, checking whether it falls inside a known /3 (your own network, a cloud provider’s published range or a blocked range) is often the quickest first step.