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Forcing a Class B from a Class C

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by wancona 1 view

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My current network is 192.168.165.x I am looking to change the network class to allow for the ability of more host nodes. How would this play out?

If I took it back one step and forced it as a Class B. I could divid it into 4 separate networks which would give me

(Network / Host Begin / Host End / Broadcast)

192.168.0.0 / 192.168.0.1 / 192.168.63.254 / 192.168.63.255

192.168.64.0 / 192.168.64.1 / 192.168.127.254 / 192.168.127.255

192.168.128.0 / 192.168.128.1 / 192.168.191.254 / 192.168.191.255

192.168.192.0 / 192.168.192.1 / 192.168.255.254 / 192.168.255.255

All these addresses would fall under a 255.255.192.0 subnet mask.

My current IP address, which is 192.168.165.x, would then fall into the range of the third network of 192.168.128.0.

My question: Would I be able to just change the subnet mask on all the computers, and everything should continue to run properly?

9 replies

by cmiller5400

You would also have to change it on all networked devices. Including routers, wireless devices, printers etc.

by wancona

Beside changing it on all devices, would that be the easiest measure of increase network nodes?

by cmiller5400

Why do you need more addresses? Wouldn't it be easier to set up VLAN's and then have a layer 3 device (switch or router) then do the routing between them? The other way you are looking at changing ALL of your devices.

I'm curious as to why you want thousands of hosts on a single subnet.

by wancona

Well he company is growing, and we keep getting new computers, new servers, and new printers. We are runnning deathly close to our 255 node limit on our class c network. We don't need thousands, we just need more than what we currently have. It's more of a preventative manner, than a now action. We would rather make a change on the servers and have the dhcp reassign the subnet mask to the workstations.

Then we need another separate network to manage the servers which are using the VirtualIron, so we are going to put the managed network on a class C network and everyone else on another network.

If we force it to a class B, i think we only have to change the subnet on the servers. And every servers can keep it's current ip address. The lease on the dhcp clients are only 10 hours, so by monday, it will have pushed out the new subnet mask to the workstation computers.

by cmiller5400

What you propose should work, but until the clients renew their DHCP lease (automatically or a ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew), they may not have full network access.

Don't forget to change all the printers, switches, routers, access control systems etc.

Good luck!!

by wancona

Everything worked like a charm. I just changed the subnet mask on the systems with static IP addresses. Configured the DHCP server, and over the weekend, while the DHCP lease expired, the new subnet mask was pushed out.

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