Chapter 4: Network Fundamentals
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In addition to the IP address, the device must also have a subnet mask. The subnet mask helps the device identify which other devices
are on the same subnet and which are on a different subnet.
On the left-hand side you will find the network settings of the MTRX itself. On the right-hand side you will find the network settings
for the Dante Audio over IP module or Dante Expansion card (if either is installed in the MTRX).
If you look at the MTRX settings, the first choice is between
Obtain an IP address automatically
or
Use the following IP address
. If
you select
Obtain an IP address automatically
, the MTRX is assigned an IP address, Subnet mask, and Default gateway automatically
by a DHCP-server (if a DHCP-server is present on the network).
If you instead select
Use the following IP address
you must enter the IP address, Subnet mask, and optionally Default gateway man-
ually.
IP address
The IP address of the unit.
Subnet mask
Determines which devices are on the same subnet. Devices on the same subnet can communicate directly with each other
whereas devices on different subnets can only communicate through a router.
Default gateway
An optional parameter. Default gateway is the IP address of the router which would allow the MTRX to communicate
with a device on another subnet. There is no need to provide a Default gateway if the MTRX does not need to communicate with devices
on other subnets.
So which IP address should you choose? If you use a DHCP-server, then it’s most likely already configured and you don’t need to worry
about it. If you don’t have DHCP-server, you need to enter IP addresses manually.
IP addresses consist of 4 bytes (numbers), usually written with a decimal point between them, for example 192.168.0.1. This means IP
addresses can range from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255, giving a total of approximately 4.3 billion addresses. The IP addresses are how-
ever reserved for different purposes, so for example some are public (when used on the Internet) and others are private (only used on
local networks). In order to avoid any problems, it is best to use the addresses reserved for private use, which are:
10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255
The subnet mask is necessary to identify which addresses are on the same subnet, and which are outside the subnet. For example, a sub-
net mask of 255.255.255.0 means that all IP addresses where the first three numbers are the same, and are on the same subnet. For an-
other example, 192.168.0.5 is on the same subnet as 192.168.0.21 because the first three numbers (192.168.0) are the same, but
192.168.1.10 is not on the same subnet because the third number is different.
With a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, there can be up to 256 devices on the same subnet, as the last number in the IP address goes from
0 to 255. For example, if you need more than 256 devices on the same subnet, you can change the subnet mask to 255.255.254.0 which
will give you an additional 256 devices, for a total of 512.
Explaining how the subnet mask is used is rather complicated, so we recommend that you just use 255.255.255.0.
Summary
IP address is the address of a device in a network.
Subnet mask is used to identify which devices are on the same network and which are outside the network.
Default gateway is the IP address of the router, in case a connection is required outside the local network.
Example network configuration