your plex media server and device are on different subnets

We always write those 32 bits as four 8-bit numbers, often called octets. There are 32 bits in the IP address and the same number in the mask. My computer knows that another device is in my subnet by looking at my own IP address and my subnet mask. That router also needs to be on my subnet. If it’s not on my subnet, I need to forward the packet to a router first. If I want to communicate with another device in my subnet, I can send packets to it directly. My laptop is on a subnet that also includes a server, a printer, a couple of other workstations, and a router. But it’s useful to understand IPv4 first because the basic concepts are the same. In IPv6 things are slightly more complicated, so we’ll save IPv6 subnetting for another article. In IPv4, a network interface is connected to only one subnet and has only one IP address. All the devices in the same subnet can communicate directly with one another without going through any routers.

What is subnetting?Ī subnet is just a range of IP addresses. So how about a quick primer? To understand IPv4 subnets, remember what a subnet is and think about the IP address in binary. Subnetting isn’t hard, but I often see even experienced network engineers looking for subnet calculators or trying to count in binary on their fingers.

Your plex media server and device are on different subnets