IP address can be used to specify a broadcast and map to hardware broadcast if available. By convention, broadcast address has hosted with all bits
IP address can be used to specify a broadcast and map to hardware broadcast if available. By convention, broadcast address has host id with all bits is 1.
For broadcasting a packet to an entire IPv4 subnet using the private IP address space 172.16.0.0/12, which has the subnet mask 255.240.0.0, the broadcast address is 172.16.0.0. 0.15.255.255 = 172.31.255.255.
Both IP versions however use the CIDR concept and notation. In this, the IP address is followed by a slash and the number (in decimal) of bits used for the network part, also called the routing prefix. For example, an IPv4 address and its subnet mask may be 192.0.2.1 and 255.255.255.0, respectively.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), for instance, requires that broadcasts be used to dynamically assign an IP address to computers on a network. Routing protocols such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP) use broadcasts to send out “advertisements.”
A broadcast address is a network address at which all devices connected to a multiple-access communications network are enabled to receive datagrams. A message sent to a broadcast address may be received by all network-attached hosts.